Winters & Yonkers Fires Associate Who Refuses to Refer Clients to "Cooperating" Chiropractor, Lawsuit

Andrew Wolfson at the Louisville Courier Journal reports on the law suit filed by the former associate of the Winters & Yonkers Personal Injury law firm.  He claims that the firm fired him because he refused to refer personal injury clients to a certain chiropractor that works with the firm.  This is an excerpt from Wolfson's story:

"A former associate at Winters & Yonker, the law firm that does massive advertising, claims he was fired for refusing to go along with an arrangement in which he says the firm trades clients with medical clinics that diagnose and treat personal injuries.

The lawyer, 28-year-old-Anthony Gadlage, says in a lawsuit that he was sacked in April because he ignored demands to send clients to Kentucky Spine & Rehab, which is owned by Dr. Gary Kompothecras (pic, right) the chiropractor behind the toll-free referral line [omitted.]  Gadlage, a former assistant county attorney, said he refused to engage in the 'quid pro quo referral arrangement mandated' by the law firm 'out of concern for the wellbeing of clients.'

Gadlage said in his suit, filed Wednesday in Jefferson Circuit Court, that sending clients to Kompothecras’ clinics made cases harder to settle. In an interview, he said that was because the clinic charged higher medical bills that insurance companies didn’t want to pay.

In a statement, the law firm’s outside counsel, Ron Green, denied that it trades clients with Kompothecras. Green said since the middle of 2009 the firm has provided clients with a 'menu of medical providers that the firm thinks well of” and has each client sign a document confirming they received a choice of physician.

The suit does not name Kompothecras as a defendant, and he couldn’t be reached for comment.

Kentucky ethics rules bar lawyers from giving anything of value for a referral[.]"
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I've talked about this sort of thing in my posts about "whore doctors."  I'm not pre-judging the claim against Winters & Yonkers, but these big personal injury firms are primarily entities with a certain business models that they adhere to.  These firms need to obtain certain "inputs" necessary for successful resolutions or outcomes, i.e. settlements, um cash.  By working with doctors or chiropractors who play ball the lawyers hope to obtain "reporting" and medical forensic evidence to support the personal injury claims they process.  I suppose this is all well and good except when what they're doing is UNETHICAL.

An online search turns up information indicating that chiropractor Kompothecras has quite an operation with over 40 "medical" facilities in Florida alone. 

We'll keep an eye on this story.

25 Years in Federal Penitentiary for Pill Mill Doc

The LATimes.com is reporting on the 25 year prison sentence handed down to former LA pill mill doctor, Mansoud Bamdad.  The eye-popping sentence reflects the Judge's reaction to the sheer scale of this physician's crimes.  He was in short a major drug dealer.  Reporter Lisa Girion's story follows:

A former San Fernando physician convicted of improperly prescribing powerful painkillers to drug addicts and undercover drug agents was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay a $1-million fine. The sentence was justified by the scope of Masoud Bamdad's 'pill mill,' the seriousness of his illicit prescribing and his apparent lack of remorse, U.S. District Court Judge George Wu told the court.

Wu cited the prosecution's report that for three years running — including 2008, the year of his arrest —Bamdad ranked among the state's highest prescribers of oxycodone, a powerful narcotic popularly known as 'synthetic heroin.' The volume of his prescriptions exceeded that of many hospitals and pain management clinics, Wu said.

'The offense that was involved here is extremely serious,' Wu said. 'The amount of drug distributed sort of boggles the mind. And it was not victimless.'

A jury convicted Bamdad, 56, in May of 13 counts of illegal drug distribution. Prosecutors portrayed Bamdad as a common drug dealer who sold prescriptions for dangerous drugs to addicts — including teenagers — and others for cash.

The practice netted his Maclay Avenue clinic about $30,000 a week, or $1.5 million a year, authorities said. Prosecutors said Bamdad was motivated by greed, adding that he lived in a Granada Hills mansion, owned several luxury cars and funneled millions of dollars to his native Iran by making cash runs to banks in Mexico.

The prosecutors portrayed Bamdad as the leader of a long-running criminal enterprise that began in 2006 after the physician was convicted of insurance fraud and his cosmetic surgery business sagged. They said that scheme included street dealers who recruited and drove homeless people from San Diego to pose as pain patients.

Jurors deadlocked on an allegation that Bamdad was responsible for the overdose death of 23-year-old patient Alex Clyburn. But Wu allowed Clyburn's parents to testify at the daylong sentencing hearing and considered the doctor's role in prescribing the drugs involved as a factor in the sentence. Bamdad 'was a significant contributor in the death of my son,' Ronald Clyburn told the court.

The sentence was less than the 40 years and $2-million fine sought by prosecutors but far more than the home confinement Bamdad had sought.

The hearing was marked by outbursts from Bamdad, who openly quarreled with Michael Brush, the latest in a series of lawyers hired by Bamdad. At the start of the hearing, the physician threatened to fire Brush and complained to the judge about the performance of the lawyer who represented him at trial.

Brush openly reprimanded his client for speaking directly to the judge and repeatedly told him to keep quiet and let him do his job. Wearing a dingy white jail suit and handcuffs tethered to a waist chain, Bamdad fumbled at the defense table with piles of papers — research he had conducted into an obscure writ that the judge denied, as well as into U.S. sentencing laws — and repeatedly demanded to speak.

When his turn came to address Wu, Bamdad ignored his lawyer's audible plea to apologize and launched into a rambling, half-hour diatribe against prosecutors, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the expert physician witness who testified against him, and even some of his patients and their families.

After about 25 minutes, Wu gave him five minutes to wrap up. Bamdad turned to the speech his lawyer urged him to read. 'I hope and pray,' he concluded through tears, 'that you agree with me that justice is not served by denying me the opportunity to spend the closing chapter of my life with those I love,' Bamdad said, referring to his wife and three daughters who sat in the front row.
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When you read local news websites you see lots of this sort of thing, including arrests of individuals in possession of massive quantities of pain killers valued at amounts that make sense on a scale of let's say the national debt. 

Being a recovering alcoholic and having been in active recovery throughout the 1980s and into the early part of the last decade I'm still a little amazed.  I mean I hear people talk about these addictions, and I see evidence of this sort of thing in the "drug screens" of workers' compensation claims--but, it's not until you come across an account like this that you see how it is and why it is that these addictions occur. 

Many years ago the sleazy ambulance chasers that I began my bad lawyering career with utilized a couple of "whore doctors" that were so dubious that rumors would occasionally swirl about this one or that one being prosecuted for "medicare or medicaid" fraud.  One of the docs, a guy I liked and who I got to know and actually had an ongoing dialogue about a anesthesiology malpractice claim I was handling, --was arrested and subsequently convicted of involuntary manslaughter relating to the death of two industrial clinic patients.   That case involved a DEA documented situation involving a patient whose pill intake accelerated to an unblievable level in an impossibly short period of time. 

Why Denying Your Crime Makes Little Sense When You Have Multiple Victims

This AZCentral story from Mesa,AZ reminds me of so many of the sex abuse cases, especially clergy sex cases I was involved with over the years. 

Part of the reason, Jeff Anderson and his SNAP colleague and attorney Barbara Blaine have been so successful in pursuing the Cathoic Church is also the reason folks at publications like American Catholic are so riled:  these advocates obtain publicity for the complaints brought by victims of clergy sex abuse.  With publicity, Jeff, Barbara, et al. are able to fashion a narrative and with the narrative, publicity, and witnesses and other victims come forward.

That is precisely what happened after Dr. Gabriel Ogbonnaya, 43, was publically charged with sexually abusing 9 female patients.  Authorities subsequently received calls from twenty-five other female victims. This is from Stephanie Russo's report for the Arizona Republic:

"The Mesa doctor who was accused of unwanted sexual contact with nine female patients pleaded not guilty Wednesday.  Dr. Gabriel Ogbonnaya, 43, pleaded not guilty to two counts sexual assault and 13 counts sexual abuse. After receiving more than 25 calls following the initial arrest, six additional victims came forward to file reports of alleged assault and abuse, officers rearrested him June 25. Police said officers had to jump over a counter and negotiate with Ogbonnaya to get him to leave his Mesa office. . .
After the Arizona Medical Board became aware of the case, Ogbonnaya was required to take a psychosexual evaluation and sign a practice restriction June 16, which required a female licensed health-care professional to be present during office visits with future female patients.

After the additional allegations surfaced, the board suspended his medical license due to the increased number of victims and the seriousness of the allegations, executive director of the board Lisa Wynn said. Following his first arrest, Ogbonnaya's attorney Jan Buescher said they "vehemently deny" the allegations. Ogbonnaya's court date is scheduled for August 26."
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Now think about it, what the hell was the Catholic Church thinking when it decided to play hard ball with the early victims of clergy sex abuse.  The Church's denial tactics created Jeff Anderson, SNAP and Voice of the Faithful all outraged voices. 

Go ahead Dr. Ogbonnaya deny your crimes, we'll see.

Doctor-Rapist Gets 25 Years

A Grady, Georgia emergency room doctor,  Adam Wayne Lebowitz, 50, was sentenced to 25 year, 8 month in prison for sex with two minor boys which Lebowitz  videotaped.  The videos were located on the doctor's computer by investigators.  Further evidence recovered in the investigation--which began when authorities picked up sexually suggestive text messages sent to a 15 year old boy, included condoms and lubricants.  This guy was planning further sexual assaults.

Lebowitz was HIV positive and instead of cooperating with federal investigators by providing them as promised with the names of others who were exposed to HIV, the doctor attempted to flee according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

A number of years ago, the son of a law professor that I know was receiving text messages from a local high school teacher. Although not explicit, the text messages suggested meeting with the teacher and touched on adolescent development issues that sent red flags to the father and to me.   At my suggestion the professor and I met with the FBI. 

While it may seem like social networking has created these crimes, I'm convinced that social networking: texting, Facebook, Twitter, and wi-fi technologies created forensic fingerprints that did not exist previously.  These technologies reveal crimes and criminals that in prior years would not have been detected.

Prison Doctor, Fondler!

Oh great, you' re in prison and the doctor is a fondler!

Dr. Brian J. Bohlmann, an internist working in the Wisconsin prison system plea bargained his way out of lengthy prison sentence for serial fondling prisoners at the county and state prisons according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Wonderful! 

How do you avoid this sort of thing, what are you going to do, run?  I don't think so.  Wow.

Whistle-Blowing Nurse Acquitted by Texas Jury!

Here at Bad Lawyer we talked about Anne Mitchell the Texas registered nurse who went on trial Monday in the most malicious prosecution to come down the pike in a long, long time.  Nurse Mitchell's crime, reporting shoddy medical practices of a physician at the Winkler County Memorial Hospital where she worked with a Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles, Jr. who happened to be pals with the local sheriff, hence the charges.  Well I am relieved to report that the ABA Journal is reporting that a Texas jury took less than one hour following a 4 day trial to acquit Nurse Mitchell. 

Here's hoping nurse Mitchell sues the hell out of the local sheriff and his quack pal

Bad Doctor, But Prosecute the Nurse that Reports Him, That Makes Sense in Texas, Right?

In the Sunday New York Times, Kevin Sack wrote about two Texas nurses (pic), one who is about to be prosecuted in state court on charges of reporting what they believed to be bad medical practices of Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr, a physician at the Winkler County Memorial Hospital.  The report is absolutely astonishing because it involves the criminalization of what most of us would hope and pray occurs in our health care system, educated professionals see substandard care and report it to their professional boards.  If an investigation proves that the concerns are misplaced, then we are all reasssured, right?  Not when the local Sheriff is pals with the offended doctor. 

This is from the Times article: 

[I]n what may be an unprecedented prosecution, . . . [Anne] Mitchell is scheduled to stand trial in state court on Monday for 'misuse of official information,' a third-degree felony in Texas.


The prosecutor said he would show that Mrs. Mitchell had a history of making 'inflammatory' statements about Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr. and intended to damage his reputation when she reported him last April to the Texas Medical Board, which licenses and disciplines doctors.  Mrs. Mitchell counters that as an administrative nurse, she had a professional obligation to protect patients from what she saw as a pattern of improper prescribing and surgical procedures — including a failed skin graft that Dr. Arafiles performed in the emergency room, without surgical privileges. He also sutured a rubber tip to a patient’s crushed finger for protection, an unconventional remedy that was later flagged as inappropriate by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Charges against a second nurse, Vickilyn Galle, who helped Mrs. Mitchell write the letter, were dismissed at the prosecutor’s discretion last week.  The case has been infused with the small-town politics of this wind-whipped city of 5,200 in the heart of the Permian Basin, 10 miles from the New Mexico border. The seeming conflicts of interest are as abundant as the cattle grazing among the pump jacks and mesquite.

When the medical board notified Dr. Arafiles of the anonymous complaint, he protested to his friend, the Winkler County sheriff, that he was being harassed. The sheriff, an admiring patient who credits the doctor with saving him after a heart attack, obtained a search warrant to seize the two nurses’ work computers and found the letter. Both sides acknowledge that the case has polarized the community, and the judge has moved the trial to a neighboring county.   The state and national nurses associations have called the prosecution an outrage and raised $40,000 for the defense. Legal experts argue that in a civil context, Mrs. Mitchell would seem to be protected by Texas whistle-blower laws.

'To me, this is completely over the top,' said Louis A. Clark, president of the Government Accountability Project, a group that promotes the defense of whistle-blowers. 'It seems really, really unique.'

Until they were fired without explanation on June 1, Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Galle had worked a combined 47 years at Winkler County Memorial Hospital here, most recently as its compliance and quality improvement officers. The nurses, who are highly regarded even by the administrator who dismissed them, said the case had stained their reputations and drained their savings. With felony charges pending, neither has been able to find work. They said they could feel heads turn when they walked into local lunch spots like El Joey’s Mexican restaurant.

'It has derailed our careers, and we’re probably not going to be able to get them back on track again,' said Mrs. Galle, 54, a grandmother who is depicted around town as the soft-spoken Thelma to Mrs. Mitchell’s straight-shooting Louise. 'We’re just in disbelief that you could be arrested for doing something you had been told your whole career was an obligation.'

It was not long after the public hospital hired Dr. Arafiles in 2008 that the nurses said they began to worry. They sounded internal alarms but felt they were not being heeded by administrators.  Frustrated and fearing for patients, they directed the medical board to six cases 'of concern' that were identified by file numbers but not by patient names. The letter also mentioned that Dr. Arafiles was sending e-mail messages to patients about an herbal supplement he sold on the side.  Mrs. Mitchell typed the letter and mailed it with a separate complaint signed by a third nurse, who wrote that she had resigned because of similar concerns about Dr. Arafiles. That nurse was not charged.

To convict Mrs. Mitchell, the prosecution must prove that she used her position to disseminate confidential information for a 'nongovernmental purpose' with intent to harm Dr. Arafiles.  Mari E. Robinson, executive director of the Texas Medical Board, has warned in a blistering letter to prosecutors that the case will have 'a significant chilling effect' on the reporting of malpractice.  The nurses’ lawyers, John H. Cook IV and Brian Carney, have filed a civil lawsuit in federal court charging the county, hospital, sheriff, doctor and prosecutor with vindictive prosecution and denial of the nurses’ First Amendment rights.  Nonetheless, the sheriff, Robert L. Roberts Jr., and the prosecutor, Scott M. Tidwell, express confidence in their case.
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This is a no-brainer.  In most jurisdictions these charges would be dismissed.  The alleged underlying facts involve "privileged communications" of a professional acting within the scope and ocurse of her professional obligation to the patient community.  We will keep our eyes on Texas.  Good luck nurse Anne Mitchell.