Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network sends along this depressing story, which I gather is what the DEA’s Karen Tandy is refering to when she talks about physicians “trading sex for prescriptions.” Excerpt:

Riggle testified that she first visited the doctor in the spring of 2001 on the advice of another addict, Pammy Miller.

After a few visits, she said, he began fondling her breasts. Eventually, she said, he propositioned her by saying: “You satisfy my needs and I’ll satisfy yours.”

She said she performed oral sex. Afterward, he wrote prescriptions for OxyContin and Xanax.

Three other women — Miller, Amy Vivio and Sue Ann Leskovic — told similar tales. A fifth, Corey Schlemmer, said she got drugs from Rottschaefer but didn’t have sex with him.

According to Rottschaefer’s attorneys, Riggle’s cooperation resulted in the dismissal of state charges of selling OxyContin.

If “you satisfy my needs and I’ll satisfy yours” sounds like an implausible, made-up quote for a doctor — even a corrupt one — that’s because it probably is. Look what happens next:

Rottschaefer’s attorneys have received 183 love letters that one of the government’s chief witnesses, Jennifer Riggle, 27, wrote to her boyfriend, Barron Shelton, from Aug. 13, 2001, to Feb. 3, 2004, while he was in prison.

In some of them, Riggle stated plainly that she planned to lie to the grand jury and at trial by saying she had sex with Rottschaefer. She hoped her testimony would get her a reduced sentence for selling OxyContin, a narcotic pain reliever.

She ended up with five years of probation in a plea bargain with the U.S. attorney’s office.

In explicably, the judge in the case has ruled the letters are not enough to order a new trial.

On Jan. 11, U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster ruled that the Riggle letters weren’t grounds for a new trial because the jury heard a defense witness say that Riggle told her that she lied. Riggle made the admission while the two were in jail in Westmoreland County.

Under the law, the new evidence is considered merely “cumulative,” the judge said. Lancaster said the letters were not given under oath, so they can be used “for impeachment purposes only, not for their substance.”

In other words, they don’t count as justification for a new trial.

What a twisted set or priorities, here. Instead of targetting the people actually dealing the drugs, federal agents let them off in exchange for (probably false) testimony against a practicing physician.

No. This isn’t a campaign against physicians at all.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2005 at 10:09 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Pain Treatment, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.