Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jan 2003
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2003 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: Kenneth A. Gailliard

OxyContin Trial

OWNER: DOCTORS PART OF SCHEME'S 'TEAM'

Defense Says Clients Got Serious Medical Care

FLORENCE - A defunct pain clinic in Myrtle Beach became an illegitimate 
medical practice about five years after it was set up, said its owner Dr. 
D. Michael Woodward.

Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center was a "pill mill," where 
patient records, medical tests and a protocol for patient treatment were 
created as protection against a potential police sting, Woodward testified 
Thursday in federal court.

In about six hours of testimony, he also detailed for prosecutors and 
defense lawyers how he built the practice and recruited doctors, who 
indicated to him they understood the nature of the operation.

In June, a 93-count federal indictment was issued alleging illegal 
activities at the center, including illegal distribution of narcotics such 
as OxyContin, Lorcet and Lortab.

On trial for charges in that indictment are three former pain center 
doctors: Michael Jackson, Ricardo Alerre and Deborah Bordeaux.

The deceptions began in about 1997 when Woodward, facing sanctions from the 
S.C. medical board, devised a scheme to keep afloat the neurological 
practice he launched in 1993, called Carolina Neurodiagnostic and Sleep 
Disorders Center.

Woodward said his practice grew when he took on patients from Myrtle 
Beach-based Dr. Julian Hayes after Hayes left his medical practice.

Woodward said he was reluctant to prescribe narcotics because he had been 
trained to use non-narcotic pain treatments.

However, many of the new patients he had acquired threatened to leave if he 
didn't.

Woodward said he changed the name to Comprehensive Care and Pain Management 
Center after 95 percent of his patients came to him for pain treatments.

But Woodward was plagued by other problems.

In October 1998, the S.C. Board of Medical Examiners revoked his medical 
license for the second time after he was charged with sexual misconduct and 
overprescribing drugs.

The agency had revoked Woodward's license in November 1997, but restored it 
a month later after an administrative law judge ordered the board to 
reconsider evidence against him.

Because of his troubles, Woodword needed the other doctors at the clinic 
because he couldn't legally prescribe drugs.

Defense lawyers Thursday countered Woodward's testimony by attempting to 
show their clients tried to provide serious medical care for people who 
needed drugs for pain.

Woodward, who holds a medical degree, two master's degrees and a law 
degree, said otherwise.

Jackson, Bordeaux and Alerre, like other doctors, were hired at different 
times through a physician recruitment service, he said.

Before committing to the practice, each shadowed Woodward as he performed 
cursory exams.

Once he had the impression they understood they would be expected to do 
similar exams then issue narcotic prescriptions, he hired them.

When asked if they thought they could do what he did, Jackson said, "I got 
your back," Woodward said.

Some even tried to cut their own deals.

Woodword said Bordeaux asked him: "If I go along with this, can I have your 
father's pickup truck?"

He said he didn't give Bordeaux the truck he had inherited from his father. 
Bordeaux and Jackson had fallen on financial hard times before they joined 
the center, Woodward said. Jackson had been working in Alabama and Bordeaux 
for a nursing home, he said.

Woodward said their responses made him think they would be part of "the team."

Bordeaux was added to the staff to help clean up record keeping that had 
become sloppy. He said he also had seen her presign prescriptions once when 
she needed to leave work early. Woodward said he never saw her visit with 
more than one patient at once.

Woodward said he was preparing Jackson, his medical director, to lead the 
clinic.

He said he had seen Jackson sign blank prescriptions. Jackson also had 
visited with more than one patient at a time, a practice Woodward frowned 
upon because he thought it put the clinic at risk.

Alerre, a former U.S. Air Force surgeon, also didn't indicate a problem 
with the way the practice was operated, Woodward said.

His job was to team with Woodward and write prescriptions for patients 
Woodward examined, Woodward said.

Trial resumes today, with prosecution witnesses who might include 
Bordeaux's ex-husband Thomas Purdy, who said Thursday she asked him not to 
testify against her.

Purdy said she offered to let him see their son, whom he hasn't seen in two 
years, if he doesn't testify.

All three doctors are free on bond, despite a request Thursday for Judge 
Weston Houck to revoke Bordeaux's bail because of her contact with her 
ex-husband..

Houck decided to add a condition to her bail requiring her to stay with 
Mary Baluss, one of her attorneys, for the remainder of the trial.
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