The Pain Relief Network

Oct 6, 2008
By: Roxana Hegeman
Fort Mill Times

WICHITA, Kan. — Attorneys for a couple accused of running a so-called pill mill prosecutors have linked to 58 accidental overdose deaths have questioned the scientific reliability of proposed testimony from the government’s expert witnesses.

In court documents, the lawyers for Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, nurse Linda Schneider, also questioned autopsy results, citing findings in at least four deaths that suggest laboratory error because they are scientifically impossible or improbable.

A 34-count indictment against the Schneiders accuses them of directly causing four deaths and contributing to 21 others. The indictment links their Haysville clinic to a total of 58 accidental overdose deaths.

Court documents filed late Friday provided a glimpse at defense attorneys’ strategy. The lawyers are seeking a hearing to determine how much of the expert testimony should be admissible at trial.

Prosecutors declined to comment Monday, saying they would file a response with the court.

In their court documents, the Schneiders’ attorneys argued that many of the clinic’s patients cited in the indictment had life-threatening diseases and that the autopsies note multiple causes of deaths, including, in some cases, heart disease. The lawyers said that no scientific method can reliably determine whether drug overdoses killed patients in such cases.

Defense attorneys also argued that drug concentrations in the body change after death, making post-mortem toxicology levels unreliable. They also said that patients who have taken opioid pain medications such as oxycodone for a while gradually develop a tolerance to those drugs at levels that would otherwise kill others.

The defense noted that in one patient the laboratory test found oxycodone in the urine but not in the blood. The defense said their expert will testify that such a finding is scientifically impossible.

“The laboratory findings described above defy the basic principles of science, yet the government bases its most serious allegations, carrying the threat of severe punishment, upon them,” the attorneys wrote.

The Schneiders are charged with conspiracy, unlawful distribution of controlled substances, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, health care fraud, health care fraud resulting in death and illegal monetary transactions. The government is also seeking the forfeiture of bank accounts, real estate property, vehicles and other property.

Defense attorneys also are challenging the admissibility of some expert testimony that alleges the Schneiders over billed government and private health insurers.

At issue is the methodology used in their statistical analysis of the clinic’s billing. The defense suggested in court papers that the clinic’s rate of error in billing may fall within the national average.

They contended that to find the defendants guilty of health care fraud, the government must show the Schneiders willfully made misrepresentations to a health care benefit program.

Source: [http://www.fortmilltimes.com/124/story/314536.html]