Verdicts and Settlements

Kentucky Paramedic Sentenced To 2 Years For Tampering With Fentanyl

May 08, 2012 lawmed 2 Comments

MONTICELLO, Ky. – U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove sentenced former paramedic 49-year-old Susie Willis to two years in prison Thursday for tampering with pain medication carried on the ambulance.

In May of 2010, Willis admitted she broke the seal on at least two medication vials containing the intravenous narcotic fentanyl citrate. She withdrew the medicine for her own personal use and then in an effort to avoid detection refilled the vials with saline solution. She resealed the vials with crazy glue. Presumably the saline was administered to subsequent patients who were in pain and would have provided no relief.

Willis’ plea agreement stated that the saline solution could have caused “extreme physical pain or impairment of bodily functions” if administered to a patient instead of the intended fentanyl. She surrendered her EMT license in December of 2010.

Under federal law she must serve 85% of her prison sentence … (Continued…)

email

print

ND Doctor In Propofol Rape Case Has Pleas Withdrawn Will Face Trial [VIDEO]

April 06, 2012 lawmed 10 Comments

We told you previously about the case of Dr. Jon Norberg, 41, of Fargo who was accused of raping a woman who was not his patient (turned out to be his wife) after administering the anesthetic propofol to her more than 30 times over an 18 month period. In January, in a deal with prosecutors, he plead guilty to felony reckless endangerment and a misdemeanor count of sexual assault. Compared to rape charges these were a walk in the park.

Norberg was accused of drugging his wife with the anesthetic propofol and sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions. Norberg has claimed his wife consented to receiving the propofol and that both of them agreed upon it as a treatment her chronic pain from an autoimmune disease. His estranged wife, a physician herself, claims otherwise and has painted her husband as a sadistic liar. Despite his plea to the misdemeanor sexual … (Continued…)

Ex Texas Nurse Guilty Of Murdering 5 Dialysis Pts With IV Bleach [VIDEO]

April 03, 2012 lawmed No comments

Huffington Post

Kimberly Saenz, Ex-Nurse Gets Life In Prison For Killing 5 With Bleach

By MICHAEL GRACZYK

LUFKIN, Texas ~A former Texas nurse convicted of killing five dialysis patients by injecting them with bleach should spend the rest of her life in prison with no chance of parole, jurors who earlier convicted the woman of capital murder last week said Monday.

Kimberly Saenz was convicted Friday of killing the patients at a clinic run by Denver-based health care giant DaVita Inc. She also received three 20-year terms for aggravated assault in the cases of five other patients who were deliberately injured at the facility in East Texas.

Jurors spent about 45 minutes deliberating before returning with a decision on the punishment. They also could have recommended that Saenz receive the death penalty.

“I was hoping for the death penalty but I’m all right,” said Wanda Hollingsworth, whose mother was among … (Continued…)

Iowa City Sues Lawyers For Bad Advice In EMS Medicare Fraud Settlement

April 01, 2012 lawmed 3 Comments

From EMSWORLD

CLINTON, IA – The city of Clinton has filed a $3 million lawsuit against the attorney and law firm that handled the city’s $4.5 million settlement of a whistleblower lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Clinton County District Court claims attorney Michael Walker of Davenport and his law firm, Hopkins & Huebner, were negligent in the legal work that led to settlement of the lawsuit over the city’s allegedly fraudulent billing of Medicare and Medicaid for emergency medical service runs.

The federal false claims act lawsuit was filed in 2008 by a former firefighter and settled in 2010 for payment of $4.5 million over 10 years.

The city claims Walker and the firm negligently caused a “rush to judgment” in recommending the settlement, according to the lawsuit.

Ron Pogge, an attorney for Hopkins & Huebner, said Thursday, “We stand by the advice we gave them, and we’ll let … (Continued…)

Settlements Reached In 41 Las Vegas Hepatitis C Lawsuits

February 22, 2012 lawmed No comments

Clark County District Court Judge Jennifer Togliatti has approved settlements involving Teva Parenteral Medicines Inc. and other companies after nine days of negotiations which were brought about by a Nevada Supreme Court order. The state high court dubbed the talks a “global settlement conference.”

Terms of the settlements were not immediately made public, however Denise Bradley, a spokeswoman for Teva, said the Israel-based pharmaceutical company had set aside $285 million to pay its share of the final agreement. “Teva is pleased to have put the vast majority of these matters behind us,” Bradley said, adding that the company still has 15 more cases pending in Nevada courts.

The ‘group’ settlement is reportedly one of the largest in Nevada history and averts countless hours and untold millions spent in litigation. The load on the judicial system of Clark County just got significantly lighter. Cases included in the settlement include a Teva … (Continued…)

Paramedic Errors: Chicago Will Pay $1.75M In Death Of 13 y/o

February 17, 2012 lawmed 2 Comments

A Chicago City Council committee has signed off on a $1.75 million settlement to compensate the family of 13-year-old Arielle Starks who died of an asthmatic attack after a series of alleged mistakes by Chicago Fire Department paramedics in 2002.

Starks died at Advocate Trinity Hospital after an ambulance carrying her to the hospital collided with a car. Another ambulance picked her up at the accident scene and took her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Attorney’s for the girl’s family alleged 3 crucial mistakes that day. The first mistake: the child was “intubated through the esophagus that leads to the stomach instead of through the trachea that leads to her lungs,” attorney Brian Murphy said. The second mistake involved ignoring a “standing medical order” issued by the Fire Department. According to Murphy, it states that if a patient’s condition worsens, paramedics are to make a direct observation … (Continued…)

Texas Medical Board Suspends Conrad Murray’s Medical License

February 17, 2012 lawmed No comments

Citing no emergent need to act since Conrad Murray is serving a 4 year prison sentence for his conviction of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson and is not a threat to the citizens of Texas, the Texas Medical Board put the matter of dealing with the convicted felon’s medical license into their routine flow of business. On February 10 they suspended his license to practice. His Texas license was already restricted, forbidding him from administering propofol to any patients. Murray’s licenses to practice in California and Nevada have already been suspended indefinitely.

Read the Board’s order below:

View this document on Scribd

… (Continued…)

Nurse Pleads Guilty To Propofol Murder Of Stepfather

February 12, 2012 lawmed No comments

In Dekalb County, Al, prosecutors say 32-year-old Karri Denise Willoughby siphoned money away from her stepfather, Billy Shaw’s, account and stole her mother’s identity for financial gain. When her theft was discovered her access to the accounts was cut off and in response she murdered Shaw they say. On Wednesday, the day after a jury was seated and the morning her trial was to begin on capital murder charges, Willoughby agreed with them and pleaded guilty to a lesser count of murder. She has been sentenced to 20 years.

It was first thought that in 2008 Shaw died of a heart attack. A year later his body was exumed when toxicology results revealed a high concentration of propofol in his blood stream at the time of death. Also found were the drugs vecuronium and succinylcholine, powerful paralytic drugs used in surgery. Willoughby worked as a registered nurse at a Chattanooga, … (Continued…)

Judge Rules Dr. Desai Competent For Trial In Nevada Hepatitis C Case

February 04, 2012 lawmed No comments

Citing a report from two psychiatrists and a psychologist at a state mental facility in Sparks who found that Dipak Desai is “competent and obviously exaggerating his symptoms” from strokes in September 2007 and July 2008 to avoid trial, Clark County District Court Judge Kathleen declared him competent to stand trial. Desai received six months of treatment at the facility last year after being court ordered there after state psychiatry experts declared him incompetent.

“The only impediment to competency asserted by the defendant is self-reported memory loss, secondary to two strokes, regarding facts relevant to his criminal charges,” the judge said. “Memory loss itself, even if true, is not a bar to prosecution of an otherwise competent defendant.” Desai’s lawyer, Richard Wright, contends that Desai is incapacitated by his strokes and other physical and mental ailments, to the point he is legally incompetent for trial.

The ruling cleared the way … (Continued…)

Full Circle: Winkler County Atty Tidwell Has License Suspended

February 04, 2012 lawmed No comments

Things have been coming full circle in the extraordinary case of the Winkler County Texas Nurse Whistleblower Case over the past year and that circle may just have closed. The last bit of justice seems to have been served with the suspension of former Winkler County Attorney Scott Tidwell’s license to practice law in the state of Texas.

It all began in 2009 when Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle, two nurses working at Winkler County Memorial Hospital who were responsible for Quality Assurance, Risk Management and Medical Staff privileges advised hospital administrator Stan Wiley that one of their physicians, Dr. Rolando Arafiles, had violated the standard of care, hospital policies and made some serious medical errors. Wiley refused to take any action and told the two they were prohibited from reporting Arafiles to any outside agency without his approval, in violation of state law.

Concerned over the safety of their … (Continued…)

Ohio Anesthesiologist Convicted Of Murder Seeking New Trial [VIDEO]

February 01, 2012 lawmed No comments

Former anesthesiologist and convicted murderer Mark Wangler is back in an Ohio courtroom asking for a new trial.

His attorney argued before the Third District Court of Appeals the reasons they should overturn the aggravated murder conviction for the death of Wangler’s first wife Kathy. The arguments focused on scientific evidence allowed, and not allowed, during the March 2011 trial. Attorney Christopher McDowell criticized the method scientists used to test chemicals on duct work in the home, calling it junk science. McDowell said Judge Richard Warren shouldn’t have allowed jurors to hear the testimony at all. He also objected to a defense witness not being allowed to refute the evidence. The chemical evidence was key since Wangler was convicted of killing his wife by using carbon monoxide, a deadly asphyxiate gas.

McDowell also says officers collected evidence beyond the scope allowed by a search warrant including a diary. However, assistant … (Continued…)

Search

Meta

Subscribe

Pages

Categories

Archive

Links

Share

Category Archives: Verdicts and Settlements

FEATURED VIDEO

Recent Posts

RN Guilty of Murder

Recent Comments