Bernard Rottschaefer’s appeal was denied last night by the Third Circuit. Oddly, the court didn’t even mention the Gonzalez v. Oregon case, which held that federal prosecutors aren’t permitted to determine what is and isn’t legitimate medical practice.

Rottschaefer, you’ll remember, is the doctor convicted of drug disribution for prescribing what drug cops said was too much OxyContin to his patients. The case against him grew more absurd when the prosecution’s star witness admitted in letters to her boyfriend that she lied on the stand about trading sex for prescriptions because the prosecution had promised her leniency for her own drug charges in return.

Rottschaefer’s now going to prison for the crime of believing his patients when they told him they were in pain. To this day, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan has refused to press perjury charges against her star witness, despite the overwhelming evidence that Ms. Riggle lied on the stand.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 6:57 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.