LOCAL DOCTOR FACES PRESCRIPTION-DRUG CHARGES Tallahassee neurologist Edmund Molis faces 84 charges of obtaining controlled substances by fraud following his arrest Wednesday night. Molis reportedly wrote prescriptions for a Tallahassee woman identified as Marianna Thedieck, who would fill them and give them back to Molis for personal use, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrest report. Thedieck has not been charged with a crime. Authorities think that Molis did not distribute or sell the drugs. Molis, whose practice is listed at 2711 Capital Medical Blvd., could not be reached for comment Thursday. A listed home phone number was disconnected. The voicemail at his practice says it's closed. Molis' arrest culminates a four-month investigation that began after a Publix pharmacist contacted the Leon County Sheriff's Office after he noticed a woman fill a prescription and leave in a car later determined to belong to Molis. The pharmacist then searched records and noticed that Thedieck filled prescriptions at six different pharmacies in northeast Tallahassee. An investigation by the North Florida Drug Diversion Response team determined that between July 10, 2004, and Jan. 19, Thedieck filled 84 prescriptions: 51 for hydrocodone, a painkiller commercially known as Vicodin; 19 for Xanax, a depressant used to treat anxiety; and 14 for Provigil, a stimulant used to treat sleep disorders. Molis' arrest is the second since January of a North Florida doctor resulting from FDLE investigations of controlled-substance violations and fraud, said Phil Kiracofe, a spokesman for the agency. In January, a federal jury convicted Dr. Thomas G. Merrill of Apalachicola for causing the deaths of five of his patients through overdoses of highly potent painkillers, including morphine and oxycodone. The 70-year-old doctor faces life in prison. He was convicted on 98 of 100 counts, including illegally dispensing controlled substances, defrauding health-care benefit programs and wire fraud. Merrill was accused of writing 33,000 prescriptions from January 2001 to May 2004, and 81 percent of those were for controlled substances. Molis' medical license was suspended in 1992 after he admitted to drug addiction, according to an article published in a 2000 Boston Globe profile of Joan Kennedy that includes an account of Molis dating her in the mid-1990s. Molis has held licenses in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin and California, according to the Florida Department of Health. The agency's Web site also indicates that Molis was charged with misdemeanor possession of controlled substances within the past 10 years. It does not provide details of that case. He earned a medical degree in 1978 from the University of Manitoba, according to Florida Department of Health. A felony charge does not result in an automatic removal of a medical licence, Thometta Cozart, spokeswoman for the Department of Health, said. "Basically those things make the doctor subject to discipline against his licence by the board of medicine. The medical board has to process the complaint, in this case brought by law enforcement, within 180 days and determine if probable cause exists for the complaint. If facts are in dispute, the department holds a formal hearing; if facts are not in dispute, an informal hearing is held. Another option is for the doctor to negotiate a consent agreement with the department or voluntarily relinquish his or her license.
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