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Clinic Warned Workers, One Says - They Were Told that DEA Agents Might Visit
 

 
Susan Finch; The Times-Picayune (New Orleans); 2006-07-15. Posted: 2006-07-15.
[Identifier: http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/WOD/WPS13-NoPillMill/NoPillMillWarnsWorkers06.htm]
[Source: http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/library-106/1152945372145180.xml?ZZLIBB&coll=1]
 
Related resources:
PAIN RELIEF NETWORK website
 
War on Doctors Academic and Legal archives  ;  Drug War Journalism and Advocacy archives
  
See also:
The New Orleans 'Pill Mill' Case - Venal Pols and Prosecutors Conspire to Ban Pain Management
WAR ON PAIN SUFFERERS #13; compiled by Alexander DeLuca; 2006-07-15
 
War on Doctors and Pain Crisis Weekly - RSS feed:   HTML view:
 

The owner of three New Orleans area pain management clinics raided last year had warned employees to act in a professional manner because undercover agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration might show up, one employee testified Friday.

Belinda Page, who worked 14 months as a practical nurse in the Scherer's Slidell clinic, told a federal court jury that there had been publicity about DEA concerns before Cherlyn "Cookie" Armstrong met with her staff and advised them to "be aware."

Page was on the stand to help federal prosecutors convict Armstrong, 46, and clinic physician Suzette Cullins of conspiracy to distribute narcotics without a legitimate medical purpose. Armstrong, a registered nurse, also is charged with money-laundering for allegedly plowing the profits from her $150,000-a-week cash business into numerous bank accounts and real estate acquisitions.

Attorneys for both women maintain the clinics provided a valuable medical service to thousands of patients forced to live with pain.

In her testimony, Page said she saw something at Armstrong's clinics she'd never encountered in her many years as a medical assistant at doctors' offices and hospitals: preprinted prescriptions for narcotics. Until she hired on with the Scherer's clinics, Page said, she had seen preprinted prescriptions only for antibiotics and antihistamines.

The undercover agent scenario became a reality on April 12, 2005, when DEA agents, posing as pain sufferers, went to her Slidell, Gretna and Metairie clinics, where standard treatment included prescriptions for painkiller hydrocodone, muscle relaxant Soma and anxiety medicine Xanax.

DEA Special Agent David Gautreaux was part of a team that went in wearing recording devices to gather evidence that the clinics were pill-dispensing mills where doctor's examinations often lasted less than a minute.

Gautreaux told the jury Friday that armed with a phony MRI report and driver's license in the name of David Grant, he visited the clinics six times early last year, each time complaining of numbness in a leg.

"Our operational plan was to essentially clinic hop and see if we were able to do so," Gautreaux told the jury Friday.

According to his testimony, Cullins prescribed painkillers for him on three occasions in visits less than a month apart. The visits were Feb. 10 at the Metairie clinic and March 4 and March 25 at the Gretna clinic, Gautreaux testified.

Gautreaux said Cullins gave him 90-tablet prescriptions for two narcotics on March 4, but reduced the number to 62 each in prescriptions she issued March 25.

Two other Scherer's physicians, Dr. Betty DeLoach and Dr. Joseph Guenther, have already been convicted in the case. Guenther testified earlier in the trial as part of a deal in which he pleaded guilty to four counts of prescribing narcotics with a legitimate medical purpose. DeLoach pleaded guilty to concealing a felony.

Testimony in the two-week-old trial was scheduled to resume this morning before U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon. The government is expected to wrap up its case Monday. Armstrong attorney Michael Fawer said the defense will begin presenting evidence Tuesday.

Susan Finch can be reached at sfinch@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3340.

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