RAIDS HIT PAIN CLINICS IN METAIRIE, COVINGTON

Prescription Abuses Probed

Drug Enforcement Administration agents searched a chain of pain
management clinics in Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes Tuesday that
law enforcement officials and the state's medical board said had been
selling prescriptions for addictive opiates.

Federal agents and local law enforcement swarmed over Global Care
clinics in Covington and Metairie on Tuesday morning and interviewed
the doctor operating a third office for the firm in Harvey. By the
afternoon they had collected surrendered licenses for prescribing
controlled substances from three doctors, none of whom specializes in
pain management, and took boxes and filing cabinets of medical and
financial records.

Global Care is part of an ongoing investigation into prescription
practices in the New Orleans area, DEA Special Agent William Renton
said. Abuse of illegally prescribed or obtained drugs such as
hydrocodone, the opiate found in Vicodin that Renton likened to
"drugstore heroin," has jumped in recent years.

"Right now drug abuse is down 24 percent nationally," Renton said.
"The only area of drug abuse where the trends continue upward is abuse
of legal controlled substances."

A law enforcement official on the scene of the raid at 609 E. Gibson
St. in Covington said Global Care would charge patients $250 cash
"just to get in the door." Doctors would then hand out prescriptions
in exchange for cash and insurance payments until the patient's
insurance was "bled dry," said the official, who asked not to be named
because of the ongoing investigation.

A ruling by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners last year
suspending the license of a doctor who had worked for Global Care
included similar charges.

Renton said he could not release details on the investigation, which
has not yet resulted in criminal charges against the doctors or Dennis
Caroni, who is registered as the owner of Global Care with the
secretary of state's commercial division.

Doctors Give Up Licenses

However, Bea Desper, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Covington
office, Colleen O'Brien, a general practitioner at the same office,
and John Smart, an anesthesiologist who ran the Metairie office, all
surrendered their licenses to prescribe controlled substances Tuesday.
They are still licensed to practice medicine.

The doctor who runs the company's Harvey clinic asked agents to speak
with a lawyer and has not surrendered her license, he said.

Covington code-enforcement officials also revoked the clinic's
occupational license pending a hearing on the company's practices.

None of the doctors who surrendered their licenses could be reached
for comment.

About a dozen DEA agents and Covington police officers surrounded the
Global Pain Management office in downtown Covington on Tuesday morning
as officials began filling a rental truck with filing cabinets and
boxes of papers. As they searched the building, several patients
walked up trying to get in. At least three of these patients were
arrested when they were found in possession of drugs or drug
paraphernalia.

At another Global Care location in Metairie, Patrick Warner, assistant
special agent in charge of the DEA's New Orleans office, said agents
Tuesday were boxing up patient files and other documents as part of
the investigation into illegal pain prescription practices.

Warner said the New Orleans area has a concentration of pain
management clinics that draw customers from several states and pose
serious health and law enforcement problems, although the number of
clinics has dropped from about 70 before Hurricane Katrina to about
30.

"A lot more people are becoming addicted to these drugs" in general,
Warner said. He mentioned a flurry of cases involving celebrities.
"Overdose deaths are occurring.

"It's a lucrative business," he said. "It's very widespread."

Tip Leads to Raids

Warner declined to identify the exact tip that led investigators to
Global Care but said neighbors often complain about heavy traffic
around pain-management clinics, and relatives of pain-pill addicts
often report where their loved ones are getting drugs.

Some of the people working in neighboring businesses at the Metairie
location at 2809 Harvard Ave., just north of Interstate 10, said they
had noticed unusual traffic around the clinic that raised concerns
about neighborhood safety.

"Why do we have license plates coming from Alabama, Mississippi?" in
the Global Care parking lot, asked John Van Vrancken III, vice
president of The Balcony reception hall two doors down. "You don't
have a doctor over there?"

Van Vrancken said the clinic had a guard who ushered customers in and
out, decreasing neighborhood disruptions but raising suspicions about
the nature of the business.

"You've got a school and church just down the street," he said. "This
is promoting crime."

Neighbors of the Covington clinic reported similar scenes. Allen
Johnson of Diversified Facilities Solutions, which manufactures surge
suppressers and other electric equipment, said patients would often be
lined up outside Global Care for an hour and a half before it opened,
particularly on Monday mornings.

Though Johnson said he never had a problem from clinic next door or
its customers, he said it was often embarrassing to walk out-of-town
clients past lines of "shady" patients.

The raids follow a ruling by the Louisiana State Board of Medical
Examiners suspending the medical license of Joseph G. Pastorek II, an
obstetrician-gynecologist who worked for the company.

The ruling found "clear violations" of rules for prescribing pain
medications.

The board suspended Pastorek's license for three years, fined him
$5,000 plus the cost of the hearings and prohibited him from
practicing pain medication for the rest of his career, according to
the ruling.