"Pinellas Park pill mill doctor, 76, sentenced to 25 years in federal prison"

[neighborboy (OP)]

Just saw this in yesterday's paper,I actually remember hearing about this guy in the drs office a few years ago,never a good thing for anybody. Figured it would be of interest.
 Idk on one hand everybody that went to him probably knew the deal but on the other hand he definitely got greedy and must have known at some point that every patient he saw wasn't legitimately in need of 100s of doses of C2 keds a month.  "Needed" them like I needed them, but not really for physical pain, anyways.
 Definitely sucks that those people died but you know allot more then three have and will die from buying shit off the street,not all his patients quit just bc his practice got shut down. Not that that's really the government's fault but definitely shortsighted, IMO.
Hope everyone's having a good day/night whatever!


TAMPA — As a doctor, Edward Neil Feldman was supposed to relieve pain. Instead, he invited mourning. He was supposed to save lives, but a jury blamed him for three patient deaths.

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The last life ruined was his own.

A federal judge Monday sentenced the 76-year-old man to 25 years in prison for heeding the call of greed by indiscriminately prescribing pain medications to addicts at his Pinellas Park clinic.

"If you would have been selling heroin on the streets and three people died, this would have been a much shorter trial and proceeding," U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore told Feldman. "But that's tantamount to what you've done.

"You became a drug pusher, and you'll have the rest of your life to think about that."

Going into Monday's hearing, Feldman faced a sentence of at least 20 years, and up to life, for charges tied to the deaths. Hours of talks between the judge and attorneys lowered the ceiling to about 30 years, but the bottom of the range was fixed by statute.

Feldman showed no remorse and said little to defend himself. He suggested he didn't realize he was breaking the law. He asked the judge to show mercy on his wife.

Kim Feldman, 66, who managed her husband's office, is scheduled to be sentenced today. Guidelines call for 15 to 19 years, but attorney Tim Taylor has asked for probation.

"She still has a life in front of her," Feldman said. "She has her children to consider. I'm responsible for putting her in this position. … I'm just asking for some relief and some consideration to the circumstances."

The couple has been living in South Tampa.

Both Feldmans were convicted during a 17-day trial in February of multiple counts in a drug and financial conspiracy rooted in the doctor's prescribing of drugs that were not for legitimate medical purposes and outside the scope of ordinary practice.

Only the doctor was held accountable in the 2010 and 2011 deaths of the patients: Joey Mayes, 24; Ricky Gonzalez, 42; and Shannon Wren, 42.

Two relatives of the deceased addressed the court.

Father Connie Lee Wren, 70, said his son liked to collect cars and motorcycles. Even five years after Wren's death, the father said he sees familiar vehicles on the road and momentarily thinks, "That's Shannon," before reality hits him.

Shannon Wren left behind two children and a $3 million estate after back problems led him to the Feldman Orthopedic and Wellness Center.

"All he was looking for was some help," Wren said.

Defense attorney Dale Sisco appealed to the judge to consider Feldman's advanced age and health problems, which include diabetes and worsening cognitive issues.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shauna Hale scoffed at Feldman's contention that he didn't know better. He had already lost a patient to a drug overdose months before Mayes and Gonzalez died.

Hale also questioned the idea that his age and health should influence a sentence.

She said untold others may have overdosed on drugs prescribed by Feldman. Patients came from all over. The investigation focused on Pinellas County deaths, in part because of thorough record-keeping by the medical examiner there.

"This defendant has lived his life up to his 70s sort of doing whatever he wanted," she said. "He's lived a good life. He's lived a great life."

She compared it with the lives of those who died of drug overdoses on medications prescribed by him.

"The people looking at this case need to know that the problems aren't the addicts," she said. "The problem are the people who make the addicts, who create the addicts. And this defendant helped to create addicts. He kept them on that nipple of oxycodone, of Valium, of Xanax, because he wanted to make money."

She said Feldman couldn't have been any more dangerous if he were Pablo Escobar, the late Colombian drug lord.

When she finished speaking, Wren's father stood in the courtroom and began clapping loudly, a breach of protocol that brought a scolding from the judge.

The judge said he couldn't be swayed by emotion.

But he delivered his own scolding to Feldman.

"As I see this case, Mr. Feldman, it's all about greed," Whittemore said. "You were in the twilight of your career, you decided you wanted to make money the easy way, you found a way to make it and you made millions.

"You got a nice house, nice automobiles, what appears to be a nice family. But it's apparent to me having listened to the testimony and examining the evidence you were not performing your profession consistent with the Hippocratic Oath."

The judge had called Feldman a doctor early in the hearing, but stopped and corrected himself, saying he had used the title only out of habit. Feldman relinquished his license in February.

He said Feldman no longer deserves to be called a doctor.

It was a sentiment Pamela Leverock, 67, mother to victim Gonzalez had expressed earlier, when asking the judge for a maximum possible sentence.

"I can't call him a doctor," she said. "He disgusts me as a doctor."

Contact Patty Ryan at pryan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3382.
Link to story:http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/pinellas-park-pill-mill-doc-and-wife-to-be-sentenced-today/2278576

[thetalkingasshole]

I read this in the Times yesterday, and I just kept thinking about the three people who died of an overdose
versus the untold number of people who may or may not have been legit pain patients still alive and addicted

not a single mention of the latter group
so long as your patients don't die, it seems like law enforcement doesnt care around here any more

[neighborboy (OP)]

Definitely. Also funny you say that, was just editing subject line (bc im crazy) and thought almost exact same thing...

[thetalkingasshole]

There was an article in the Times today about his wife getting sentenced to 4 years
the defense tried to portray her as this submissive vietnamese woman raised to be serve her man

she was looking at 15-19 YEARS in the fed, instead she just gets 4
i mean, its not she was the one with the medical license prescribing stuff
she was just the instructing staff to not check prescription history or take urine samples
and making the structured cash deposits at levels just below what gets reported
and offering patients referral bonuses

again, no mention in the article at trying to estimate how many people may still be dealing with addiction as a result of these two
that being said, im only trying to play devils advocate, as i really dont think they did anything wrong
there was a demand, and they filled it
its almost amazing that only three of his patients over that whole time actually died of an overdose
those places were seeing between 70-150 people A DAY
per month that would be 2100 people AT LEAST
a mortality rate of 1 in 700 at the worst, over a two year period

and just thought i would also mention there was no mention of any financial penalties they had to pay
i assume its cost them quite a lot to fight this, but still
the gov't LOVES seizing assets yet no mention in this instance

[theSWPK]

I know this case is pretty extreme with how many patients were being seen, but it always makes me mad to hear about a doctor that doesn't have a fuckload of patients go to prison when someone overdoses. Doctors can't stop some patients from taking more drugs than they are prescribed.

[Guts]

Fuck the judge, prosecutor, and the police.

[Roman Totale]

that being said, im only trying to play devils advocate, as i really dont think they did anything wrong
there was a demand, and they filled it

Yep.  I feel the same about the docs as the street dealers getting charged up with homicide for fatal ODs.  "Oh no, people went in trying to get narcotics and he gave it to them."  And you're right, I bet a lot of non-"pill mill" doctors have a higher OD/fatality rate than this guy did.  I hope it makes everyone feel better that he's going to die in prison. 

I had a good friend (actually from your neck of the woods) who died from meningitis as a result of shooting pills, back during the heyday of the Fla. pill mills. (I'm not totally sure how you contract meningitis from IVing; I'm thinking it had to do with the sanitary condition of the syringes, since I'm sure Fla. required a script for insulin needles back then and maybe they still do.)  His family was all furious at the doctor and were hellbent on going after him, but we all knew he and his wife were addicted and injecting pills.  Do people think drugs materialize in the poor junkie's hand magically?

And you're also right that the authorities only seem to give a shit about pain patients once they die.  They certainly don't care about making their lives more and more miserable with typical American overreaction to "the opioid epidemic" and all the crazy restrictions being legislated on their access to pain-relieving drugs.  And they don't really care about providing services for the people addicted to pain medicine who don't want to be, whether they initially became addicted as a result of medical or not.

[dizzle]

Fuck the judge, prosecutor, and the police.

Ding ding we have a winner.


That's some bullshit, that the judge said "who knows how many countless lives you endangered" comparing him to el padrino. How about this, federal government, you give people what they need, for addiction or otherwise, educate them properly and give them PROPER guidance and oversight, and use a little thing called PERSONAL responsibility, not fuckkng global responsibility for everyone involved. Allow people access, with proper oversight, education and monitoring and if they manage to kill themselves, well then, that's on THEM!

If someone goes to the drug store, buys bleach, drinks the whole thing and dies, do they hold the cashier or the store responsible? No, because the fucking person has been educated and knows the risks, so it's on them. I mean, what the fuck??

[Griffin]

That sucks for the doctor, I don't think he should be charged with anything, a few people may have died but he probably saved 100 people from OD from heroin because with meds they know how much they are taking and there are probably less Injecting Drug Users or people who could of died from drug deals gone bad or trigger happy cops. No dumb ass cop, or judge needs to play doctor and shouldn't have any say over any medical question.

Its infuriating how cops, judges, politicians and our criminal justice system just ruin, endanger, and end millions of lives all willy nilly. How can they sleep at night knowing how many children don't have parents because of them, or kids who have been lost as a direct result of their actions, for fuck sake.

They must truly believe they are the 2nd coming of jesus to goto the extent they do everyday to protect people from themselves. Kicking in peoples doors in the middle of the night with assault rifles and masks on, throwing flashbang grenades, and teargas, while shooting and killing people and/or their pets over pot or other bs. I bet that 1000s of kids have been through that situation. You can't tell me that a kid who has experienced anything like that isn't going to have some kind of stress from that kind of trauma.

That fucking judge is one hypocritical dick, talking about how many lives the dr has endangered, think about how many people's lives that judge has ruined with prison, fines, criminal records, life sentences, suicides and deaths of the people he put in prison. The amount of money and years taken from peoples lives in his court room and being stuck in a cage.

I'd kind of like to know how many lives the average judge ruins, like how many years he wastes putting people in cage, people he has killed, people with criminal records now, how much money he's stolen I bet on average each one ruins 10,000+ peoples lives a career. Just the average amount of years one judge sentences in his career would be interesting, or how much money he steals through fines and civil asset forfeitures, or how many people have died in prison that he sent there whether it be from suicide, diseases, age, or murder. It's has to be disturbing.