by News
Drugs-For-Sex Sentence Reduced
Feb 9, 2007
By: Jason Cato
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
A federal judge today cut 1.5 years off the sentence of a former Oakmont doctor accused of trading prescription drugs for sex.
Bernard Rottschaefer, 64, of Plum, was sentenced to five years in prison. He was convicted in March 2004 of 153 counts of illegally prescribing controlled substances. U.S. District Judge Gary L. Lancaster originally sentenced Rottschaefer to 6.5 years in prison. The judge issued a new sentence today due to a later U.S. Supreme Court ruling stating the sentencing guidelines are advisory and not mandatory.
Rottschaefer was allowed to remain on bond for more than two years while he appealed his conviction. The Supreme Court declined to hear two appeals. A third attempt for a new trial is still pending.
At his trial in 2004, five female patients testified they were drug addicts who were prescribed painkillers for no medical reason. Four of the women testified that Rottschaefer wrote the prescriptions after they performed oral sex.
Rottschaefer has adamantly denied ever trading prescriptions for sex. Part of his appeals was based on post-trial evidence his lawyers said proved at least two of the witnesses lied on the stand.
More than a year after the trial, Rottschaefer’s lawyers were given 183 love letters written by one of the prosecution’s star witnesses to her then-boyfriend, who was in jail. In the letters, the witness repeatedly wrote that she never had sex with Rottschaefer and was only lying in order to curry favor with prosecutors in hopes of getting reduced or no jail time for drug charges.
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