DENTIST DEFENDS MURPHY IN SUIT

Stress Of Court Battles Over Prescription Drugs Exacerbated The
Former Sheriff's Jaw Ailment

Former sheriff Patrick Murphy seemed to be on the road to recovery
from chronic jaw pain caused by a 1988 fight with an irate bus
passenger during his tenure as Snohomish police chief.

Surgery in 1995 appeared to work.

His headaches were gone and he slept at night. Most of all, the pain
was absent and he was off narcotic prescriptions, said Dr. Herbert
Gordon of Seattle, a dentist by education and Murphy's health
provider for a condition known as temporomandibular joint disorder,
or TMJ.

The situation was so stabilized that in February 1996 Gordon authored
a letter to the state Department of Labor and Industries telling
Murphy's case manager that his patient might well be discharged from
his care within a few months.

But at the time Murphy was fighting physical ailments, he also was
defending himself against charges that he fraudulently obtained
narcotic prescription drugs by going to multiple doctors.

It was the stress of the court battle that eventually wore Murphy
down and caused his jaw ailment to flare up enough to warrant a
second surgery and lots more treatment, Gordon told a Snohomish
County Superior Court jury on Monday.

His physical decline "was brought about by the need to defend himself
over a long period of time from criminal charges," Gordon testified.
Now, his jaw problem likely will never by cured, he added.

The testimony came in Murphy's civil trial against the state Board of
Pharmacy for alleged conspiracy to improperly disclose Murphy's
confidential prescription records to others, including county
officials. He's seeking up to $10 million in damages.

The disclosure led to an investigation and the appointment of a
special prosecutor in 1995. At the time, Murphy was sitting as the
appointed sheriff filling a vacancy. He had to run for election in
the fall in order to maintain the job, and the special prosecutor
filed charges a week before the November general election.

Murphy lost his bid to become the elected sheriff. In July 1996, a
Skagit County judge threw out critical evidence, drug prescription
information. The judge ruled that Pharmacy Board investigators
improperly obtained the information without first getting a search
warrant.

Board investigators pursued Murphy because they were concerned about
the number of prescriptions he obtained. They compiled a list of more
than 260 prescriptions from several doctors over 17 months ending in
May, 1995.

Gordon issued many of them, but so did a number of other physicians
and a dentist who were treating Murphy for a series of accidents.

The jaw disorder, however, was the constant source of pain through
the years, Gordon testified, and he prescribed narcotic pain
relievers to control but not extinguish it. The other injuries
required additional pain medication, he added.

"The pain was so severe and unrelenting and he needed medication to
manage that pain," Gordon said under questions by Mark Northcraft,
Murphy's lawyer. "I felt it absolutely essential to protect Mr.
Murphy from the pain."

But Gordon conceded under questions by Assistant Attorney General
Paul Triesch that it's prudent for a health care provider to know
what medications others doctors are prescribing for their patients.

He told jurors he presumed that other doctors were treating Murphy
for pain for a variety of other injuries. But in 1993, when Gordon
first started treating Murphy, he conceded that Murphy didn't tell
him about two other doctors who were giving him narcotic pain
medication at that time.

The trial is expected to continue at least another two weeks.