FORMER DEPUTY TAKES STAND IN DOCTOR'S TRIAL

A former Buchanan County sheriff's deputy told a jury
Wednesday that he lost his job and became estranged from his fiancee
after years of abusing prescription drugs.

``I depended on (drugs),'' Brian Elswick said. ``Every day I had to
take them, sometimes five a day, sometimes 10.''

Elswick was the first prosecution witness to take the stand in the
federal trial of Grundy doctor Franklin J. Sutherland, 46, who has
been accused of prescribing drugs, including the potent painkiller
OxyContin, without legitimate medical reason.

The former deputy told the seven-man, five-woman jury that Sutherland
sometimes phoned in prescriptions for potent painkillers without
examining him and wrote some in the names of people he never treated.
Sutherland is charged in two federal indictments with 577 counts of
illegally prescribing narcotics, tranquilizers and diet drugs
including Lorcet, Lortab, Percocet, Tylox, Valium, Didrex and
Dexadrine.

The abuse of OxyContin and other prescription drugs has reached
epidemic proportions in some parts of the state, authorities have
said, and more than two dozen Southwest Virginians have died from
overdoses.

Sutherland's trial began Tuesday and is expected to conclude late next week.
If convicted, the physician could face multiple sentences of life in
prison and millions of dollars in fines, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Ramseyer said Sutherland knew many of
his patients were addicted but continued to prescribe drugs anyway.
Elswick testified that he and Sutherland became friends in 1993 and
that for the next four years, the doctor prescribed him powerful
narcotics, at first to combat a sore back and later to fuel his
addiction.

He said he would tell the doctor of pain in his back, elbow or leg
and that Sutherland would call in prescriptions for Lorcet, Percocet
and Xanax.

``I knew that (Sutherland) had to know there was a problem,'' Summer
Chambers, Elswick's former fiancee, told the jury. She said she broke
up with Elswick when she discovered his drug habit.

The doctor sometimes would write prescriptions in the names of
Chambers and Elswick's father, Kelly Elswick, without their
knowledge, the younger Elswick said.

``At the time, I needed (drugs) to survive,'' he said, adding that
the doctor never intervened to stop his addiction.

Testifying Wednesday as an expert witness was Dr. Adam Steinberg, an
Abingdon internist.

Steinberg reviewed for the jury nine years of charts and
prescriptions Sutherland wrote for another drug-addicted patient.
According to the records, Sutherland prescribed increasing doses of
Tylox and OxyContin in response to the man's monthly complaints of
migraine headaches, sinus infections, bruises and back pain.

``I don't think there was any medical purpose,'' Steinberg said. ``I
think it contributed to his addiction to the drugs.''

The doctor said the man showed obvious signs of addiction and that
the powerful drugs never were needed for his relatively minor
ailments.

Prosecutors this morning at 9 are set to continue presenting
evidence, including more testimony from Steinberg.