Pubdate: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2003 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Author: Lee Mueller, Eastern Kentucky Bureau CLINIC DOCTOR CONVICTED OF PRESCRIBING ILLEGALLY 20-Year Sentence Recommended For Fortune Williams VANCEBURG - A Lewis County jury last night convicted Dr. Fortune Williams of unlawfully prescribing controlled substances at a small rural clinic in Eastern Kentucky. The panel of seven women and five men deliberated more than three hours, after six days of testimony, and recommended a 20-year sentence. Williams, dressed in a black suit, stood expressionless beside his attorney as Judge Lewis Nicholls read the verdict. Nicholls set formal sentencing for April 4. Attorney Bryan Underwood, a Maysville public defender, asked for leniency because Williams had no previous criminal record. "This might be the first time in Kentucky where a doctor has gone to trial and not just laid down and cooked a deal," Underwood said. "I realize Eastern Kentucky has a drug-prescription problem," he said, "and recently authorities have come down hard on physicians like Dr. Williams." After the trial, Underwood said he would appeal. Williams, 54, a California pediatrician who was hired to work at a small clinic at Garrison in Lewis County from Dec. 1, 2000, to Oct. 30, 2001, was charged with four counts of illegally prescribing a controlled substance last April by a Lewis County grand jury. He has been lodged in Lewis County Jail since last August when he was taken into custody after returning from Jamaica. "I don't think it's unreasonable to infer that when he got placed in an Eastern Kentucky clinic, he got in over his head," Underwood told the jury before it decided Williams' sentence. Lewis Commonwealth's Attorney Clifford Duvall reminded the jury that Williams will receive credit for time served in jail and will be eligible for parole after serving 20 percent of his sentence. He urged consecutive sentences for the Class D felonies, each of which carries sentences of one to five years in prison. Duvall suggested Williams had lowered himself to being a street-level drug dealer "and needs to be treated like that." Although prosecutors based much of their case on an expert's evaluation of 35 sample case files, the four charges stemmed from two prescriptions Williams wrote on Aug. 7, 2001, and Sept. 5, 2001, to Phyllis Jean Brothers, 36, of Lewis County. Williams, who has been held in Lewis County Jail under a $10,000 cash bond since August, sat alone in the courtroom at 6:30 p.m., awaiting a verdict. Williams did not testify during the trial. Underwood said Friday he did not plan to call any witnesses, but told Circuit Judge Lewis Nicholls yesterday morning that he changed his mind over the weekend. Underwood put four witnesses on the stand, including a former Williams patient and three former employees at 1st Care clinic at Garrison, about halfway between Vanceburg and South Shore on the AA Highway. Prosecutors claimed at least 4,000 patients--- many of them younger drug abusers from Ohio -- swarmed to the clinic inside a former grocery store. Prosecutors also calculated the small clinic in a town of 800 people was taking in up to $14,000 a day in cash. Former patient Ollie Bertram, 56, of Greenup County, yesterday praised Williams as a concerned doctor who referred her to other physicians for treatment. But she conceded under cross examination that she and her two sons had received the same combination of pain pills and other medication. Rebecca Zornes of West Portsmouth, Ohio, said she and four or five other employees at the Garrison clinic, including part-owner Nancy Sadler, had previously work at a South Shore clinic owned by Dr. David Procter. "Some of the patients did come from over there because they really liked Dr. Williams," said Zornes, who said Procter's clinic at the time had had a succession of "locum tenens," or temporary, doctors. "They (patients) were sick and tired of having a different doctor every month," she said. Procter, Sadler and another South Shore employee were indicted last year on federal prescription-drug conspiracy charges and are scheduled for trail in Ashland on April 23. In closing arguments yesterday, Duvall told the jury that Williams "is as guilty as any other drug trafficker that pushes 2.5 million doses of pain killers. The difference is that he was a doctor and he should know better," he said. Duvall said Williams is a "doctor who has prostituted his medical license in order to market drugs to 150 patients a day." - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager