Pubdate: Wed, 09 Mar 2005
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: B02
Copyright: 2005 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Jerry Markon, Washington Post Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Hurwitz
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)

LIFE SENTENCE SOUGHT FOR VA PAIN DOCTOR

Defense Attorney Calls Federal Prosecutors' Request 'Insane' And 'Obscene'

Federal prosecutors urged a judge yesterday to send William E. Hurwitz
to prison for life, saying the prominent former pain doctor repeatedly
lied on the stand during his narcotics-trafficking trial last year.

In a memo filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, prosecutors said
Hurwitz's "criminal behavior was simply disgraceful" and "blatantly
violated his Hippocratic oath" to help patients. Hurwitz was convicted
of running a drug conspiracy out of his McLean office and trafficking
in narcotics that caused the death of one patient and seriously
injured two others. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 14.

Hurwitz's attorney, Marvin D. Miller, called the government request
for a life sentence "absolutely insane and way beyond the realm of
rationality." Portraying Hurwitz as a caring doctor who wanted only to
help his patients, Miller said, "This is obscene."

Miller said U.S. District Judge Leonard D. Wexler should give Hurwitz
a sentence of less than 25 years in prison.

The contrasting views of Hurwitz set up what promises to be an
explosive sentencing hearing in a case that already has generated a
lot of heat. As cancer patients and others in chronic pain became
increasingly vocal about access to treatment, Hurwitz became a symbol
in a nationwide debate. Advocates for patients with chronic pain
portrayed him as a licensed doctor prescribing legal drugs to patients
in dire need with nowhere else to turn; prosecutors said he took
advantage of that hope.

Adding to the uncertainty about Hurwitz's sentence, a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision made "advisory" federal guidelines that had
been mandatory for judges. Hurwitz's is one of the first major cases
to come up for sentencing in federal court in Alexandria since that
decision.

The government accused Hurwitz of prescribing excessive amounts of
dangerous drugs - in one instance 1,600 pills a day - to addicts and
others, some of whom then sold the medication on a lucrative black
market.

The case capped a three-year investigation, part of a broader federal
crackdown, into doctors, pharmacists and patients suspected of selling
potent narcotics and fueling an epidemic that ravaged Appalachia.
Nationally, most other convicted pain-management doctors have received
sentences much shorter than the one recommended in this case, law
enforcement officials said yesterday, though one doctor convicted in
Florida last year was sent to prison for life.

A federal jury in December convicted Hurwitz of 50 counts of the 62-
count indictment, including conspiracy to distribute controlled
substances. Jurors acquitted him of nine counts and deadlocked on three.

Patient advocates have portrayed Hurwitz as a heroic figure who helped
patients nobody else would treat. Advocates reacted with shock to the
government's call for a life sentence.

"That's really something. That's unbelievable," said Russell Portenoy,
chairman of pain medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.
"Such an extreme sentence sends the message to the medical community
that the government will continue to go after doctors."

The government memo lays out numerous examples of lies that allegedly
were told by Hurwitz when he testified and that prosecutors cite in
calling for a tougher sentence. In one example, the memo says, Hurwitz
lied when he blamed the prescription of 1,600 pills a day to one
patient on a "clerical error."

Prosecutors quoted from letters sent to the judge by relatives of
Hurwitz's victims. One was from Mary Meyer, mother of Linda Lalmond,
who died of a drug overdose in Fairfax County in 2000 shortly after
meeting Hurwitz. She wrote that her daughter "left home hopeful and
smiling, had 2 visits with Dr. Hurwitz and was returned home in a container."

"I request that Dr. Hurwitz be sentenced to the fullest extent of the
law," Meyer wrote. 
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