Pubdate: Fri, 05 Apr 2002
Source: Bucks County Courier Times (PA)
Copyright: 2002 Calkins Newspapers. Inc.
Contact: http://www.phillyburbs.com/feedback/content_cti.shtml
Website: http://www.phillyburbs.com/couriertimes/index.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1026
Author: Laurie Mason
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?186 (Oxycontin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/People/Richard+Paolino

EX-OXY PATIENT: WAITING ROOM ALWAYS PACKED

The man, who is now working with police as an informant, said up to 80 
people crowded in to see Dr. Richard Paolino each day. Paolino is accused 
of prescribing OxyContin without a license.

There were only nine chairs in Dr. Richard Paolino's waiting room, so the 
usual crowd of 75 to 80 patients waiting to be seen often spilled out into 
the hallway, a police informant testified yesterday.

Most of the people in the office had a certain look, he said.

"About three-quarters of them were scruffy, dirty. They looked like they 
were hung over. They all looked like they were on drugs."

The Philadelphia man, whose name is being withheld at prosecutors' 
requests, testified that he visited Paolino at the behest of a Philadelphia 
drug dealer and was paid $1,500 for every prescription of OxyContin he got 
from Paolino.

The dealer, identified in court as Serverio Borelli, then sold the drug on 
the street, the informant said. At $50 or more per pill, one bottle of the 
powerful painkiller could fetch at least $6,000.

The informant testified yesterday at Paolino's trial in Bucks County court 
in Doylestown Borough. Prosecutors say Paolino prescribed OxyContin and 
other drugs without a license. They claim he wrote out prescriptions for 
patients without examining them and gave OxyContin to anyone who paid cash 
for a visit including teens.

OxyContin is a time-release painkiller that has become a popular street 
drug in recent years. Users crush or chew the tablets to break the 
time-release coating then snort or swallow the pills to get high.

More than 50 overdose deaths were linked to OxyContin in the Philadelphia 
region last year. Paolino, however, is not charged with causing any deaths.

The informant said Borelli, who recently died of a drug overdose, had 
talked behind closed doors with Paolino at his Hulmeville Road office. 
After that, the doctor gave the informant prescriptions made out for him 
and others.

He said he went back nine or 10 times, and each time was handed drug 
prescriptions even though he wasn't examined.

Another former patient, Karl Dugger, said Paolino gave him prescriptions in 
exchange for Dugger repairing a tanning bed in the office.

And ex-patient Tammy Davalos testified that she was unaware that the 
doctor's license was expired when he was giving her OxyContin and the 
tranquilizer Xanax for back pain.

"If I would have known he didn't have a license I would have never went to 
him, because a doctor's not supposed to do that," she said.

Standing trial along with Paolino is Dr. Wesley Collier, 52, of 
Philadelphia. Prosecutors say he and another doctor, David Harmon, 53, of 
Philadelphia "covered" for Paolino by signing blank prescription pads.

Paolino's license expired in October 2000 and was suspended shortly after 
because his malpractice insurance lapsed. Harmon pleaded guilty last month 
and testified for the prosecution earlier in the trial.

Corie Clifford, Paolino's former medical assistant, testified that Paolino 
got wind of the investigation against him by pharmacists who called the 
office. After he was tipped off that police were watching him, she said, 
Paolino started putting contracts in the patients' files stating that they 
couldn't sell or give their pain medication to others.

But under cross-examination by Paolino's attorney, Geoffrey Graham, 
Clifford also said that Paolino kept a list of patients who were "doubling 
up" on drugs by visiting other doctors, and turned such people away.

The informant said he mentioned the huge crowd of patients in the waiting 
room to Paolino during one of his last visits there.

"He told me he had everything under control," the informant said.

Paolino is charged with practicing medicine without a license, drug 
delivery, prescribing medication outside a normal doctor-patient 
relationship and 1,400 counts of insurance fraud. If convicted, he could 
face more than 100 years in prison.

The trial resumes today. Paolino is being held in Bucks County prison on $1 
million bail.
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