Saturday, February 21, 2015
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Bucks County doctor charged with running pill mill
Posted: Thursday, January 29, 2015
A Bucks County doctor who operated pain management practices and spearheaded a failed effort to buy Lower Bucks Hospital has been charged with running a prescription “pill mill” out of his medical offices in Philadelphia and Bristol Township.
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| Dr. William J. O'Brien III |
Dr. William J. O’Brien III, 49, of Philadelphia, was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and 26 counts of illegally distributing drugs outside the usual course of professional practice and for no legitimate medical purpose. The drugs included oxycodone, a powerful painkiller, and Xanax, which is used to treat anxiety, according to U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
His receptionist at two offices — Angela Rongione, 29, also of Philadelphia — was also charged Thursday with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.
Authorities allege that between January and December 2014, O’Brien’s so-called “patients” could obtain prescriptions for addictive narcotics without a physical exam or other medical care or treatment for a fee, and that O’Brien then falsified “medical” records to make it look as though the patients were examined.
The prescriptions were allegedly sold out of his medical offices in the 9800 block of Bustleton Avenue and 40 block of Rolling Lane in Bristol Township.
O’Brien, who is licensed in Pennsylvania as a doctor of osteopathic medicine, typically charged customers $250 for the first appointment to buy prescriptions and $200 for an appointment to obtain refills, the indictment stated. On one occasion, in October, he allegedly offered to trade a prescription for a sex act.
Patients paid cash, which O’Brien and Rongione referred to as the customer’s “co-pay,” the indictment said. To avoid detection by law enforcement, O’Brien told customers to fill prescriptions at pharmacies located “at a distance” from his offices, the indictment alleges.
Over the monthslong investigation, two undercover FBI agents allegedly purchased prescriptions for narcotics from O’Brien. One agent purchased scripts for 6,200 tablets, while another obtained scripts for 1,020 tablets, according to the indictment.
Rongione specifically is accused of assisting O’Brien with screening customers, scheduling appointments, collecting cash and keeping records of the prescriptions O’Brien sold, the indictment said.
If convicted, O’Brien faces 20 years in prison for the conspiracy charge, five years for each distribution count and “substantial fines and criminal forfeiture,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Rongione faces 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charge.
Until nearly four years ago, O’Brien was well known in the Lower Bucks medical community for operating a network of medical and pain management practices in Bucks, Philadelphia and Lehigh counties as well as other medical business ventures.
In 2009, he headed the creation of Doctors’ Hospital of Bucks County LLC, a group of about 80 local doctors who attempted to buy the then-financially troubled Lower Bucks Hospital before it declared bankruptcy. O’Brien’s hyperbaric oxygen business — Hyper-Ox Inc. — had operated out of the Bristol Township hospital between 2007 and 2010.
O’Brien’s corporation, WJO Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010. The company included O’Brien’s medical practices, Hyper-Ox and East Coast TMR, a work injury-related pain management practice. At the time, both its assets and liabilities were between $10 and $50 million, according to the court filing.
After the bankruptcy filing, the hyperbaric oxygen practice came under federal scrutiny.
In 2011, the FBI seized records and materials related to the business during a raid at four of his then-seven medical offices in Bucks and Philadelphia. Also seized was O’Brien’s self-invented and patented multiperson hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
The search warrants included only records and items connected to Hyper-Ox, not O’Brien’s medical or physical therapy practices, according to O’Brien. Federal officials have never publicly commented on the Hyper-Ox investigation.
O’Brien said he suspected the government had questions about the safety of his 10-person hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which was moved to an undisclosed location in Fort Dix, New Jersey, according to documents related to his 2011 bankruptcy filing.
The bankruptcy documents also suggest that O’Brien believed an “unhappy” former employee may have instigated the FBI probe into the hyperbaric oxygen business, which he was counting on to revive his string of medical practices. He planned to use the therapy to treat workers’ compensation back injury and concussion patients.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
Wrightstown dad says he feared son would kill him and grandmother
Posted: Monday, February 2, 2015
After saying he wanted to die and stabbing himself in the chest, a 24-year-old Wrightstown man with a history of drug use bludgeoned his father with a padlock concealed in a sock, then attacked his 95-year-old grandmother when she intervened, according to court documents.
Jared Rose would have killed him and his grandmother if police hadn’t arrived to subdue him, 57-year-old Marc Rose told police. Subduing the younger Rose required eight police officers and a stun gun, Newtown Township police said.
Jared Rose was arraigned at bedside Sunday at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown. He’s being treated for injuries that authorities said he received in the Thursday attack, including a partially amputated finger and a self-inflicted puncture wound to the chest.
He’s charged with two counts of attempted murder, four counts of aggravated assault and related charges in the attack on his dad and grandmother, Lorraine Patterson. He was denied bail and will be incarcerated after he is medically cleared, Newtown Township Detective Cpl. Jason Harris said.
Marc Rose and Patterson remain hospitalized at St. Mary with multiple injuries, including head trauma. Marc Rose also was stabbed in the face with a broken golf club. Patterson remains in the intensive care unit with injuries including a brain bleed, police said.
Newtown Township police, who cover Wrightstown, responded to the home in the 50 block of Lark Lane after receiving a disconnected 911 call. They said they found Jared Rose on top of his father, repeatedly striking him in the head.
After subduing Jared Rose, police saw Patterson walking toward them from the garage area, according to the probable cause affidavit. They said she was bleeding profusely from the head and face, missing teeth and appeared to have a fractured jaw, which the hospital later confirmed. Patterson told police her “grandson Jared” had attacked her, according to the probable cause affidavit.
During the investigation, police said they found blood, blood trails and bloody footprints inside and outside the house.
The attack began, Marc Rose told police, as he was working in his home office. He said his son walked into the room and stabbed himself with a Swiss Army knife while saying he wanted to die, the affidavit said. Marc Rose said he called 911 on his cellphone and blurted “Lark Lane” before Jared smashed the phone and attacked him.
“He (Marc Rose) doesn’t remember how many times he was hit, but clearly stated he knows Jared was going to kill him,” the affidavit said.
When police interviewed Marc Rose in the hospital, he said his son has had “several bouts” with drugs and he had noticed behavioral changes in the past week.
When Patterson tried to intervene, her grandson started hitting her with the weighted sock, police said. Marc Rose said he carried her to the front porch to get her away from his son, police said. But Jared Rose followed and continued the attack outside where he was stabbed with the broken golf club, Marc Rose told authorities.
“At this point, (Marc Rose) remembered thinking, I hope help is coming because my son is going to kill me,” the affidavit said.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
Monday, February 9, 2015
Cop: Witness in 2006 Bristol Twp. murder lied to be more believable
Posted: Wednesday, January 28, 2015
A one-time star eyewitness provided “accurate” information about a 2006 murder that went unsolved for six years, according to a Bristol Township detective, but he left out one critical detail in his court testimony: He wasn’t there.
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| Kyle Simpson |
Detective Tim Fuhrmann testified Wednesday that he had contact with Kyle Page, 29, of Bristol Township, more than a dozen times since 2009, when Page first testified before a Bucks County grand jury about witnessing his first cousin Ckaron Handy fatally shoot Kevin Battista in a botched drug-deal-turned-robbery.
But it wasn’t until November — after authorities learned that Page was in jail on the day of the murder — that he admitted he didn’t see the murder like he claimed, Fuhrmann told the court during a preliminary hearing for Page, who is accused of three counts of felony perjury.
Fuhrmann told the court that Page did change his first story slightly, requiring him to make a second appearance in 2009 before the grand jury investigating the murder. But he never told the grand jury that he wasn’t there when the shooting took place.
Initially, Page’s story was that he saw Handy shoot Battista from a window at his grandmother’s house, the detective said. But he changed the story and claimed that he was standing 10 feet away from Handy when Handy shot Battista, 30, on Dec. 7, 2006, at Airacobra Street and Mitchell Road, Fuhrmann testified.
But when confronted with the fact that he was in prison on the day of the murder, Page claimed that the details he provided to police about the murder came from Handy, Fuhrmann told the court. Page also said he lied about seeing the crime because he thought he’d be more believable as an eyewitness, Fuhrmann said.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office was alerted by Handy’s defense attorneys that Page might have been incarcerated the day of Battista’s murder, Fuhrmann said.
On cross examination by public defender John Fagan on Wednesday, Fuhrmann said that the information Page provided was accurate, other than the part about him being present when Battista was killed.
“It was accurate based on our working theory (of the crime) at the time,” the detective added.
Page, who has a long criminal history going back to 2004, had requested Fuhrmann’s “assistance” with “various problems” in the years between 2009 and last year, the detective said. Page also persuaded the DA’s office to relocate his family to a “safer area” claiming their lives were in danger, Fuhrmann added.
After his deception was learned, Page wrote two letters to the DA’s office apologizing for lying about witnessing the murder, according to police.
Following Fuhrmann’s testimony, District Judge Joanne Kline — whom Page testified before at Handy’s 2013 preliminary hearing — held him for trial on the perjury charges. He remains in Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $25,000 bail.
Handy, now 26, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to life in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and robbery in the shooting of death Battista.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
Cops: Montco woman, Temple professor not a licensed psychologist
Posted: Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Susan Schecter-Cornbluth swore under oath that she was a practicing clinical psychologist in Pennsylvania, as well as licensed to practice family and marriage therapy in New Jersey.
But Solebury police say that the 41-year-old Montgomery County woman, who also teaches psychology at Temple University, lied.
They said Schecter-Cornbluth, of Ambler, committed perjury in December 2013 when she testified as an “expert witness” in a Bucks County family court hearing that she was a “licensed clinical psychologist” in New Jersey.
Schecter-Cornbluth also claimed that she practices clinical psychology in Pennsylvania, which allows a person to practice psychology without being licensed in the state, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Court documents do not say what prompted Solebury police to investigate Schecter-Cornbluth’s background claims, and the newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Detective Roy Ferrari, who filed the charges.
But a subsequent search of Pennsylvania and New Jersey records found that Schecter-Cornbluth was never licensed to practice as a psychologist in either state and never applied for a license to practice psychology in New Jersey. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State on Tuesday confirmed that psychologists practicing in the state must be licensed.
In December, authorities allege, Schecter-Cornbluth entered into a “consent agreement and order” with the Department of State’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, admitting to never being authorized to practice psychology as a profession or occupation, according to the affidavit.
“As a result the defendant was ordered to cease and desist from engaging in the practice of psychology in Pennsylvania,” court documents state.
Schecter-Cornbluth was arraigned Monday before District Judge Mark Douple on one count of felony perjury. She was released on $75,000 unsecured bail.
As of Tuesday, Schecter-Cornbluth was still teaching two psychology classes at Temple University, where she has worked as an adjunct faculty member since 2003, according to Brandon Lausch, a university spokesman.
“When an employee faces criminal charges, the university reviews those charges and any potential impact to employment and takes appropriate action, up to and including termination,” Lausch added.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
Will Tom French get the last word in fraud case?
Posted: Saturday, February 7, 2015
Tom French is dead, but will the retired Bucks County deputy sheriff — through two notes he reportedly left behind — get the last word in the $20 million insurance fraud in which he was accused?
The answer may play a role in the upcoming criminal proceedings involving the remaining members of the Risoldi family and two co-conspirators who the Pennsylvania Attorney General accused of fraud and related offenses in connection with three fires at the family’s Buckingham mansion between 2009 and 2013, according to local legal experts.
“That is a fascinating question,” Bucks County criminal defense attorney Paul Lang said. “There will be a debate over prosecution and defense over whether it’s admissible.”
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| Thomas French |
In a 2,721-word note that French purportedly wrote before he died of a single self-inflicted gunshot to the head, the 64-year-old states that in recent weeks he had been making “notations” on his recollections related to the third fire in October 2013, as well as the family’s claims that firefighters had stolen jewelry worth more than $10 million — jewelry owned by his wife, Bucks County socialite Claire Risoldi.
“I have had no input from anyone in reference to this and no one knows that I am constructing this document,” according to the note a family associate emailed to the newspaper. “I did tell Claire that I was writing a scenario of the fire to you as requested.”
The note does not state who requested that French provide a written recounting of the days before and after the 2013 fire. The note, however, includes lengthy, unrelated rants, particularly against the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and its investigators. The office investigated and, upon a grand jury’s recommendations, filed insurance fraud and related charges against French and his 67-year-old wife, her children Carl A. “Carlo” Risoldi, 43, and Carla V. Risoldi, 48, and Carl’s wife, Sheila Risoldi, 43, and alleged associates Mark Goldman and Richard Holston.
In the note, French said he was not involved in discussions with attorneys and was “never” involved in any discussions with AIG, the insurance company that has paid $20 million for damages related to the three fires at the mansion named Clairemont.
He wrote that his wife owned numerous pieces of expensive jewelry, including necklaces that she claimed were each worth more than $500,000. He said in the note that he told investigators that Claire kept her jewelry in a “very large” safe in the basement and didn’t have her jewelry “laying around.”
According to the note, French said that on the morning of the 2013 fire he saw two off-white Risoldi Law Office bags in the hall on chairs. Claire told him the bags contained jewelry to be secured in safety deposit boxes. The day after the fire he found one of the bags in Carl and Sheila’s bathroom with two or three empty jewelry boxes and a Risoldi Law Office bag in the dining room containing boxes he didn’t open.
“THIS IS TRUE AND UNADULTERATED AND I TAKE THIS TO MY GRAVE,” French wrote in capital letters.
The note continued, stating that in the days after the fire French and restoration employees found other pieces of jewelry throughout Clairemont.
“I found a large diamond on my office floor. I found three (3) rings in an unmatched box at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor,” according to the note. He added that he continued to believe that firefighters had a role in the missing jewelry.
“I hated to have come to that conclusion, but I don’t see any other way the jewelry could have disappeared,” he wrote.
Lang, the defense attorney, suggested that a party who wants the notes admitted as evidence may argue they should be considered a dying declaration. It is testimony normally barred as hearsay, but could be admitted as evidence in certain cases because it represents the last words of a dying person, the attorney said.
But, in the end, “it’s going to come down to the judge” to decide, Lang added.
Veteran criminal defense attorney Ron Elgart is among the legal experts who doubts the French suicide notes would become a standalone factor in the criminal trial of the remaining defendants, but may be used to corroborate other testimony.
“Number one, you are dealing with someone who is not in their right mind, and you don’t have a chance to cross examine,” Elgart said.
Elgart added that while dying declarations are admissible evidence, they must adhere to certain requirements. Suicide notes are typically not deemed credible, he added.
Former Bucks County prosecutor Bob Salzer, who served in the district attorney’s office from 2005 to 2011, says it’s unlikely the suicide notes will come up at the trial for the remaining six defendants.
Even if authenticated as French’s final words, the notes themselves could be ruled as hearsay since French was not under oath and not subjected to cross-examination by prosecutors when making his final statement, Salzer said.
He added it could also be serious mistake to mention French’s suicide during any future trial.
“A good prosecutor could spin that around as evidence of guilt,” added Salzer, a criminal defense and family law attorney with Williams Family Law in Doylestown.
“If the defendant believes he is innocent, then, a prosecutor could argue, why not fight the charges at trial?” Salzer said.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
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