GUILTY FL - Dr. Gerald Klein charged in patient OD, pill mill, West Palm Beach, Feb 2009

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/23/2371284/federal-authorities-announce-south.html


For the first time in Florida’s war on prescription drug abuse, investigators are pursuing pill mills as organized crime enterprises — and corrupt doctors as murderers.

After a three-year investigation, federal authorities announced the details of Operation Oxy Alley, a sweeping indictment charging 32 people under racketeering statutes for their involvement in South Florida-based pill mills that doled out 20 million oxycodone pills and profited more than $40 million dollars from illegal sales of controlled substances. In a companion indictment, local authorities charged a doctor with first-degree murder in the death of a West Palm Beach man who died within hours of filling a prescription for a painkiller.

“As a result of today’s takedown, we have dismantled the nation’s largest criminal organization that was illegally distributing pain killers and steroids,’’ said FBI Special Agent in Charge John V. Gillies. “This is the first time doctors, pharmacies, and a pharmaceutical supplier have been indicted for their involvement. Up until now, efforts focused on the demand by targeting individual users. Today, we attacked the source and choked off the supply.’’



More at link...
 
Glad they are doing it. Though it will be harder for people in pain to get script now, the illegal drugs coming from the doctors is getting out of hand.

Anyone think that the deaths of Anna Nicole and MJ and the roles doctors played in it may have gotten this started?
 
About time they starting getting to the source. From the above link on the murder:


Apart from the federal indictment, Palm Beach County prosecutors also charged a West Palm Beach physician, Dr. Gerald J. Klein, with first-degree murder for the overdose death of a pain-clinic patient named Joseph Bartolucci in 2009.

Klein is accused of prescribing an unnecessary amount of the potent painkiller hydromorphone and anti-anxiety drugs for Bartolucci on Feb. 27, 2009. Bartolucci, 24, was found dead in his home the next day.

Also charged with murder were clinic owner Jeffrey George and Theodore Obermeyer, an office manager at George’s East Coast Pain Clinic in West Palm Beach. According to an arrest report, Obermeyer was instructed by Jeffrey George to make sure the doctors prescribed enough drugs to “keep the patients happy.”
 
Glad they are doing it. Though it will be harder for people in pain to get script now, the illegal drugs coming from the doctors is getting out of hand.

Anyone think that the deaths of Anna Nicole and MJ and the roles doctors played in it may have gotten this started?


Those cases certainly publicized the problem, especially with Anna Nicole dying in Florida having all those drugs in her room.

The article also indicates there has been a big increase in deaths and some of their focus was the big money made illegally:

Oxycodone was the cause of death for 2,710 people, about a 28 percent increase since 2009. And about 85 percent of all oxycodone sold comes from Florida.

“Everybody from all parts of the nation, it seems like, comes to South Florida to all get these pain killers,’’ Ferrer said. “Some are addicts who are feeding their habits. Some are just drug traffickers who are buying pills to sell them to make a real good profit.’’

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/23/2371284/federal-authorities-announce-south.html#storylink=cpy
 
Next I would like to see them charging dealers with manslaughter if they sell to someone who overdoses.
 
Former pill mill doctor's murder trial set to open
August 24, 2015
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-doctor-murder-trial-opens-20150824-story.html
A Palm Beach County jury Monday will hear opening statements and the first witnesses to testify in the trial of a doctor charged with first-degree murder in a patient's overdose death.
Klein's case is one of the rare times a doctor in Palm Beach County, or the state, has gone to trial on a first-degree murder charge.

It took five days to select the jury last week; attorneys waded through a pool of 220 prospective jurors to pick 12 jurors and two alternates.

Circuit Judge Karen Miller said the trial should last two weeks. Klein faces a sentence of life in prison if convicted on the first-degree murder charge.
 
From last month:

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/12/03/former-pill-mill-kingpin-given-20-years-in-prison/

A former pill mill kingpin, who’s drug empire was worth a reported $43 million, was sentenced to 20 years in prison following the fatal overdose of a West Palm Beach man in 2009...

Judge Joseph Marx sentenced 35-year-old Jeff George with the maximum possible term Wednesday in a plea deal concerning second-degree murder and drug trafficking charges.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/p...er-jeff-george-sentencing-20151202-story.html

Obermeyer has yet to be sentenced as part of a plea deal that is similar to George's; he cannot get more than 20 years in prison.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-gerald-klein-judge-appeal-update-20151209-story.html

Even if it's true Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Karen Miller rolled her eyes and made faces during the trial of former pain clinic doctor Gerald Klein, attorneys for the state say she shouldn't be disqualified from presiding over the case.

Judges aren't required to have "poker" faces in court, according to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office...

The defendant faces sentencing on a felony drug conviction, but first he wants another judge to consider granting an acquittal on the charge or awarding a new trial. Klein's challenge over Miller's body language, and other complaints of alleged bias, resulted in a delay of his planned sentencing hearing last week.
 
From last month:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-pill-mill-murder-plea-sentencing-20160128-story.html

A few dozen close relatives and friends came out for Theodore Obermeyer on his 35th birthday Thursday. They spoke of happy memories and good times, but this was not a celebration for the family guy they affectionately call "T."

Instead, they watched in sorrow as Obermeyer received a 15-year state prison sentence and a $100,000 fine, resulting from his plea deal with prosecutors on a second-degree murder charge in the overdose death of a "pill mill" customer.
 

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