COOPERATIVE DOCTOR GETS LIGHTER SENTENCE IN DRUG CASE

Steven Snyder of Louisville Faces 35 Months

By cooperating with federal prosecutors, Dr. Steven Snyder earned a
reduced sentence yesterday for illegally prescribing narcotics at a
notorious Eastern Kentucky clinic.

U.S. District Judge Henry Wilhoit sentenced Snyder, who lives in
Louisville, to 35 months in federal prison, half the 70 months
stipulated under federal sentencing guidelines, said Assistant U.S.
Attorney Patrick Molloy.

During a hearing yesterday morning in Ashland's federal courthouse,
Molloy asked the judge to reduce the sentence because Snyder had
helped prosecutors obtain a guilty plea from Dr. David Procter.
Procter owned a South Shore, Ky., clinic that supplied painkillers to
addicts from a half-dozen states between 1996 and June 2002.

Snyder worked there for about six months in 1999, the first of more
than a dozen temporary physicians Procter hired after being disabled
in a car accident. Including Snyder, four temporary doctors have
pleaded guilty or been convicted on federal or state charges that they
prescribed narcotics for a nonmedical purpose.

In an interview, Molloy said that following Snyder's arrest in 2000,
he gave prosecutors significant information about the clinic and
Procter, "and that's what really got the investigation going."

"The guy just opened up," Molloy said. "He told it
all."

In court yesterday, Snyder, 52, apologized for his actions and thanked
the legal system for intervening to save him from his drug addiction,
Malloy said.

Snyder pleaded guilty in April 2001 to one count of conspiring to
fraudulently obtain controlled substances and to one count of
illegally distributing narcotics. He also pleaded guilty to three
firearms counts.

After leaving Procter's clinic, Snyder opened his own office in South
Shore, where he worked for six to eight months.

"He saw that this was a way to make money, and he wasn't getting all
the gravy," Molloy said.

Snyder and his wife, Jodee, were addicted to narcotics, according to
Snyder's plea agreement. He wrote narcotic prescriptions in the names
of his wife's relatives, and the couple would consume them, it said.
Snyder often supplied his wife "with as many as 50 to 75 narcotic
pills a day in order to satisfy her addiction," the plea agreement
said.

Snyder admitted that he split pills with patients for whom he
prescribed narcotics, and he also phoned in prescriptions to
pharmacies for patients who would call him and request narcotics,
according to the agreement.

Between February 1999 and August 2000, he was responsible for the
unlawful dispensing of more than 31,000 narcotic pills, according to
the plea agreement.

Snyder, who has surrendered his medical license, could have his
sentence reduced to about 30 months for good behavior in prison, and
he could serve the last several months in a halfway house, Molloy
said. He will be allowed to report to prison in about three weeks.

Jodee Snyder, 28, who pleaded guilty in 2001 to conspiring to
fraudulently obtain controlled substances, was placed on probation for
one year.

Molloy said she is in poor health and has suffered almost total
hearing loss as a result of drug abuse.

Two other doctors who worked at Procter's clinic have been sentenced
in state courts - Dr. Rodolfo Santos to 16 years and Dr. Fortune
Williams to 20 years. Procter is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 18.