Pubdate: Wed, 18 Jul 2001
Source: Bristol Herald Courier (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Bristol Herald Courier
Contact: http://www.bristolnews.com/contact.html
Website: http://www.bristolnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1211
Author: Marshall Tobelmann

PHYSICIAN CONVICTED OF ILLEGALLY PRESCRIBING PAINKILLERS

ABINGDON -- After 16 hours of deliberations over three days, a federal jury 
found a Bland County physician guilty Tuesday of 266 counts of illegally 
prescribing narcotic painkillers, including OxyContin. Dr. Freeman Lowell 
Clark, 43, displayed no emotion as the judge read the verdicts, but his 
family and friends gasped in disbelief. After court adjourned, Clark calmly 
hugged his family and kissed his fiancee, Mary Sivert, before federal 
marshals led him from the courtroom. Clark could face up to 15 years in 
prison when sentenced later this year, prosecutors said. Defense attorneys 
argued against jailing Clark until sentencing, but Assistant U.S. Attorney 
Randy Ramseyer said federal bond law requires drug offenders to be held in 
custody.

The judge agreed. "The law seems to be pretty clear on this," Ramseyer 
said. "Dr. Clark would have to be detained." The verdicts came on the 10th 
day of trial for Clark, who had been charged with 296 counts of 
distributing controlled drugs -- including OxyContin, Percocet, Tylox, 
Lortab and Lorcet -- without a legitimate medical purpose. The jury 
acquitted him of 30 of the counts.

Prosecutors portrayed Clark as a "drug dealer in a suit," but defense 
attorneys said he merely was a good-hearted doctor who wanted to end his 
patients' suffering. Defense attorneys hinted after the trial that they 
might appeal the verdicts. "I'm sure there will be post-trial motions to be 
filed," said attorney Robert Vinyard. Clark is the fifth Southwest Virginia 
doctor to be convicted in recent months of illegally prescribing narcotics.

In May, a federal jury convicted Grundy physician Franklin J. Sutherland on 
similar charges. More than a third of the counts against Clark involved 
OxyContin, which has been linked to more than 120 overdose deaths 
nationwide. Abuse of the drug has reached epidemic levels in the region, 
and more than three dozen Southwest Virginians have died of overdoses, 
authorities have said. Clark's offenses occurred between 1999 and 2000 at 
his clinic, which first was in Bluefield and later moved to Wytheville, 
then Bland. During the two-week trial, former patients testified that they 
had been abusing the narcotic pills Clark prescribed, crushing and snorting 
or injecting them to achieve an intense euphoria. Several witnesses said 
they were longtime drug abusers before ever meeting Clark, and others said 
they first became addicts when Clark prescribed powerful narcotics for 
their pain. Some patients said they were getting narcotics from several 
doctors at the same time they were seeing Clark, and others said Clark knew 
they were addicted and did nothing to help. Clark himself testified that he 
struggled with substance abuse and was being monitored by the Virginia 
Board of Medicine at the time the offenses occurred. The doctor was being 
held Tuesday night in the Washington County Jail pending a sentencing 
hearing, which U.S. District Judge James Jones set for Oct. 16.
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