Prescription For Abuse, Part 1B

EXPENSIVE LIFESTYLE, INVESTMENT LOSSES LED TO BANKRUPTCY

SOUTH SHORE, Ky. -- In the mid1980s, Dr. David Procter built a $750,000
English Tudor house in a community where the median home value today is a
little more than $40,000.

Overlooking a pond, the house was decorated with Persian and handknotted
Chinese rugs, antiques and artwork, including a set of 7-foot-tall bronze
storks valued at $1,800.

Procter's wife, Karen, was from New York and "brought some refinement,"
said Terry Fyffe, an Ashland accountant who attended parties at the house.

But area residents don't see much of Procter these days. His attorney said
he spends most of his time at home, where a sign on the iron gate across
his winding, lantern-lined driveway now seems outdated. "Private residence,
NO patients," it reads.

Procter stopped practicing medicine after a car accident in late 1998, amid
an investigation by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure into
allegations he had sex with patients and prescribed excessive amounts of
pain pills. His license was suspended in 1999, and he surrendered it the
following year.

Last July, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he had
conspired since 1996 to illegally distribute controlled substances. He has
pleaded innocent. He is scheduled to go on trial April 23.

Free on a $10,000 bond, Procter is spending his time "trying to collect the
documents that support his innocence," said his lawyer, Tracy Hoover of
Portsmouth, Ohio.

Although Hoover declined to allow Procter to be interviewed, Procter talked
about his life in a deposition taken last year as part of a lawsuit he
filed over the November 1998 accident.

"I sleep a tremendous amount. I don't do a whole lot of anything," Procter,
51, said in the deposition, adding that he was forgetful and suffered from
depression, frequent headaches and pain in his left shoulder and arm.

"I can't read for diddly, because I don't remember what I'm reading," he
said. "I'm very anti-social. I stay away from people, stay away from crowds."

He said he was receiving disability insurance payments of $198,000 per
year, according to the deposition.

A dozen former patients and acquaintances interviewed in the South Shore
area describe Procter as intelligent and personable -- "a real B.S.-er,"
said Cliff Duvall, commonwealth's attorney for Greenup and Lewis counties.

But in private, Procter betrayed an attitude of superiority, according to
Fyffe, who recalled the doctor referring to his patients as "the little
people."

In 1993, Procter was indicted in Greenup County on a misdemeanor charge of
menacing after he allegedly pointed a pistol at Chad Spriggs, a teenager he
thought had stolen a T-shirt from one of Procter's sons.

Procter was acquitted by a jury, but in 1996 settled a civil lawsuit filed
by the boy's father, agreeing to pay $3,000, according to court records.
Procter continues to owe some of the money, according to the records and
Harry Spriggs, the father, and his lawyer.

"He's very hot-tempered. He don't need to be carrying a gun," said Spriggs.

David Herbert Procter grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and earned a medical
degree from the University of British Columbia in 1976. A year later, after
completing a one-year internship at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, he
came to the United States.

He left behind his first wife, Donna, who was pregnant with their daughter.
They divorced in 1978 in Portsmouth, Ohio, where Procter first lived when
he came to work in South Shore, across the Ohio River.

Procter was recruited to South Shore by the late Dr. Billy Riddle, who
wanted a young doctor to work with him and take over his practice after a
few years.

Fyffe, who was Riddle's accountant, recalled that soon after Procter
arrived, he showed up uninvited at a party Fyffe had thrown, wearing a
full-length fur coat -- unusual for the rural community.

During the party, "He took me back in a bedroom and told me I had screwed
up his taxes," Fyffe said. "I thought it was a little rude in a social
function."

Fyffe said Procter was upset that he owed federal income taxes when he
filed his return, so Fyffe had more withheld from the doctor's paycheck.

"Next thing I know, I get a call from our paraprofessional in tears.
(Procter) had apparently cussed her out," believing his new take-home pay
was too little to live on.

Riddle and Procter ended their business relationship in 1979. Fyffe said
Riddle told him he "had some technical medical problems" with Procter.

Riddle died a few months later, and the physician who took over his
practice, Dr. Frank Mynes, said Riddle never told him why he and Procter
ended their relationship.

Couple faced financial woes

Procter set up his own practice in South Shore, and by the mid-1980s, he
had 4,000 to 5,000 active patients, according to records of the state
medical licensing board.

He and Karen, who were married shortly after Procter's divorce, were
raising three boys -- Levi, Alex and Sol -- and Procter was earning between
$175,000 and $200,000 a year from his practice during that time, according
to records of a bankruptcy case he later filed.

To reduce their tax liability, the Procters in 1979 began buying
moneylosing apartment buildings in Ashland. The couple spent more than $1.2
million on several complexes that generated average losses of $145,000 a
year, according to bankruptcy records. But Congress changed the tax laws in
1986, which eliminated the tax shelter and saddled the couple with big losses.

During this time, according to bankruptcy records, the Procters built and
furnished their house and bought a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Toyota SUV and a
1966 red Corvette. Altogether, the cars cost more than $100,000.

But Procter fell $4,000 behind in child support payments to his first wife
in 1985, according to Scioto County court records in Portsmouth. He paid up
after an Ohio prosecutor filed a motion to hold him in contempt.

Procter's ex-wife and their daughter, now 24, could not be located.

The Procters' spending and mounting losses from their real estate
investments forced them to file for personal bankruptcy protection in 1992,
according to bankruptcy court records. The "final straw," they said in
court documents, was delayed payments from the Ohio Medicaid program, which
provided a substantial portion of his income. (Procter also received money
from the Kentucky Medicaid program.)

Their financial difficulties didn't end with the bankruptcy filing.

In 1996, they settled a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, agreeing
to pay $403,336 in back taxes, interest and penalties for the years 1989,
1990 and 1992.

The Procters were required to sell their Porsche and Corvette by the
bankruptcy court. But in the mid-1990s, with Procter earning between
$325,000 and $450,000 a year from his medical practice, they acquired two
Mitsubishi sports cars for their two oldest sons,

Levi and Alex, and a Porsche Boxster for Karen Procter, according to a
deposition Alex gave in 2000 for a lawsuit the Procters filed against their
former business manager.

Oscar "Corky" Salyers, who managed the Procters' financial affairs, claimed
in a response to the suit that the cars were bought or leased in his name,
because David Procter needed Salyers' credit to borrow money.

In the fall of 1999, Salyers, who declined to comment, had the Mitsubishis
towed, claiming the Procters owed him money for car payments. The Procters
sued to get the cars back, saying they had made the payments and that
Salyers was the one who owed money. A judge ordered that Salyers return the
cars, but the suit is pending.

David Procter also is paying child support for a son he had with Mary
Katherine Dials, a former clinic employee, according to her lawyer, James
Shuffett of Lexington. Dials was indicted in July on a charge that she
conspired with Procter to illegally distribute controlled substances.

Allegations in mid-1980s

Procter first got into trouble with the Kentucky medical licensure board in
1986, when the agency investigated allegations that he had prescribed the
pain medications Percodan, Percocet and Tylox for 21 patients without
performing an adequate history, conducting necessary tests and keeping
adequate records. Board records do not show why the board began its
investigation.

The board temporarily ordered Procter to stop prescribing or dispensing
controlled substances during the probe.

But a year later, the board dropped the case after its hearing officer said
its investigators had "compromised" it by obtaining only a small portion of
Procter's records and that a more complete review did not substantiate most
of the allegations.

The hearing officer said Procter had prescribed powerful, schedule II
narcotics for chronic pain patients "over an extended period of time," but
"is now using drugs with less potential for abuse."

The hearing officer concluded that he "believes that the Board identified a
problem area, and the Respondent's practice now appears to have been
rectified."