ROANOKE DOCTOR SEEKS RETURN OF SEIZED FILES

Federal Agents Took 297 Medical Records During A Search Of Doctor's Office

The doctor, who has not been charged with any crime, is under investigation
for health care fraud.

Attorneys for a Roanoke doctor under investigation for making false medical
claims to insurance programs and prescribing drugs such as OxyContin to
addicts and dealers fought in federal court Tuesday for the return of his
patients' medical records.

Roanoke attorneys Chris Kowalczuk and Deborah Caldwell-Bono, who are
representing Cecil Knox, argued that Knox needed back the records federal
agents seized when they executed a search warrant at his office June 27.

"This is a doctor by himself with a small staff and lots of patients,"
Kowalczuk said. "He needs his files back." Federal authorities seized 297
medical records that day.

Knox, 52, who practices at Southwest Virginia Physical Medicine on Second
Street Southwest, has not been charged with any crime in connection with the
investigation.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Peters said of the defense attorneys'
efforts, "I suspect that his increasing demands for records have more to do
with lawyering than doctoring."

Kowalczuk also pointed out that when federal agents executed a search
warrant at Knox's office, they said they would return copies of Knox's
records within three weeks. Six weeks have passed.

Peters, who stood in for prosecutor Tom Bondurant at the hearing, said that
the question of returning records is an issue in any health care fraud
investigation.

Peters said special agent Robert Wardlow of the Roanoke office of the
Department of Health and Human Services was not being evasive about
returning Knox's records.

"The holdup is not at all foot-dragging," Peters said, "it's a lack of
resources." She added that Wardlow had already provided Knox with copies of
many of the medical records seized - the most recent ones - and was working
on returning copies of the rest.

The U.S. Attorney's Office, which has brought charges against five doctors
in Southwest Virginia for prescription fraud in the last five years, will
keep the originals of the records during the investigation.

"This is a case in which there are some cloudy issues about the integrity of
documents," Peters said.

Kowalczuk also argued for the return of some of the materials seized by
agents when they executed a search warrant at Knox's home in July. Items he
mentioned included Knox's daughter's computer disks and videotapes of family
vacations. Knox was in the courtroom, as was his wife, Donna.

But Peters said the disks could be connected with Knox's alleged audiotaping
of patients without their knowledge. She also argued that the videotapes,
which are dated, could serve to place Knox somewhere else when records
indicated he was working.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Glen Conrad expressed concern that the people who
could suffer as a result of the investigation would be Knox's patients.

"The patient who has a problem wants to know that his doctor has his whole
medical history," Conrad said.

He ruled that the Knoxes should make a list within five days of the items
they wanted returned to their home. Conrad also ruled that the government
should finish making copies of all of Knox's medical records by Aug. 27.