DOCTOR PLEADS GUILTY IN DRUG CASE

E. Kentucky Physician Served Addicts, Was Sometimes Paid In Sex.

ASHLAND, Ky. -- He made an average of $4,000 to $5,000 a day, or almost $1
million a year, and was generally paid in cash. He traded painkillers for
sex, and though he realized his patients were addicts, he didn't try to cut
them off.

Yesterday, Dr. David Procter pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to three
felony charges -- one of conspiring to distribute controlled substances and
two of prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose.

He is the sixth Eastern Kentucky physician in two years to be convicted of
or plead guilty to illegally prescribing painkillers; the seventh was
convicted later yesterday by a Greenup County jury.

Standing with his hands clasped in front of him, the white-haired,
ruddy-faced Procter told District Judge Henry Wilhoit yesterday that he and
four other doctors he hired at his South Shore clinic routinely prescribed
narcotics to hundreds of addicts between 1996 and 2002. Some came from as
far as Columbus, Ohio.

As part of a plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors, Procter
admitted that between 1996 and November 1998, when he had a car accident,
he would at times see 80 or more patients a day, prescribing pain pills
after limited, if any, medical examinations. He also admitted prescribing
more than 1.5 million tablets of Schedule II and III controlled substances
and prescribing narcotics to two women in exchange for them having sex with
him in his office.

Procter will be sentenced Aug. 18. Under federal guidelines, his sentence
could range from 10 years and one month to 12 years and seven months. But
Wilhoit is not bound by the guidelines.

Procter, 52, also has agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 at the time of his
sentencing.

If he had gone to trial and been convicted of all four counts in his
indictment, Procter could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison
and a fine of $1 million.

One of the last doctors recruited to work in Procter's clinic, known most
recently as Plaza Healthcare, was Dr. Rodolfo Santos. Proctor testified
against him Friday and Santos was convicted by a Greenup Circuit Court jury
yesterday on seven counts of illegally prescribing a controlled substance
to a paid police informant during two visits in April and May 2002.

Santos worked for Procter from May 2001 to June 2002, during which time
Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Duvall said Santos prescribed 1.3 million
pills of the painkiller hydrocodone.

The jury recommended that Santos, 65, serve a total of 16 years in prison,
but he could be eligible for parole in a little more than three years. He
faced a maximum of 35 years. Judge Lewis Nicholls set sentencing for May 22.

In an interview, jury foreman Carolyn Massie of Russell said jurors were
heavily swayed by testimony that Santos prescribed a narcotic for the
informant on her first visit, even though he had almost no information
about her.

Santos' Lawyer, Michael Curtis of Ashland, had asked the jury to consider
Santos' age in sentencing him. "The fact of the matter is that he's never
going to practice medicine again," Curtis said. "He's lost everything that
he's had because of happening to come into contact with Procter."

Curtis later said Santos was upset but had not discussed an appeal.

On his way out of the courtroom, Santos tried to comfort his 14-year old
son, Anthony, who was crying.

Larry Bailey of Grayson watched from his seat in the courtroom. Bailey's
son, also named Larry, a 35 year-old Navy veteran, died of an overdose in
2001, the morning after Santos prescribed 180 tablets of hydrocodone and
other pills for him.

"His family didn't deserve that," Bailey said of Santos' son and wife,
Donna, as they left the courtroom. "My family didn't deserve that either."

At least nine patients who obtained drugs from Procter's clinic died of
overdoses in recent years, according to the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration and the Greenup County coroner.

Law-enforcement and drug-treatment officials say the crackdown on the
doctors has reduced the prescription-drug problem in some areas, but it
persists in many Eastern Kentucky counties.

As part of Procter's plea, prosecutors have said they will seek a reduction
in his sentence if he provides substantial help.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Molloy said Proctor is expected to testify
against two of his former office managers, who are to go on trial this
morning in federal court in Ashland.

The two, Nancy Sadler and Mary Katherine Dials, are accused of conspiring
with Procter to distribute prescription drugs by recruiting physicians and
helping to run the office after his 1998 accident. They have refused to
negotiate pleas.

Yesterday in court, Procter said in a loud, unwavering voice that he
conspired with Sadler and Dials to recruit temporary physicians to "write
prescriptions for narcotics, to put narcotics on the street."

As Procter spoke, Sadler and Dials glared at him, occasionally shaking
their heads "no."

Interviewed after the hearing, Sadler's attorney, Steven Hillman, said of
Procter: "He made a statement that my client profited. My client made $8 an
hour. I don't call that a profit." Hillman said Procter "blames everybody
for everything he does."

In the plea agreement and a sworn statement he gave to prosecutors last
week, Procter said his medical practice evolved from primarily pediatric
and geriatric patients to mostly workers' compensation injuries, to about
95 percent pain-pill patients by 1998.

"While many patients initially came to Dr. Procter with legitimate medical
needs, often work related, Dr. Procter routinely prescribed Schedule II,
III and IV narcotics for them month after month without a legitimate
medical purpose," the plea agreement states. "Many became dependent upon
the narcotics."

The commonly prescribed medications included the painkiller Lorcet; the
anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Valium; and Soma, a muscle relaxant.

After his 1998 accident, Procter surrendered his medical license but kept
his clinic open by employing a series of temporary doctors from across the
country, according to the plea agreement.

Some left quickly after realizing the nature of the practice, but the
agreement states, "Drs. Steven Snyder, Frederick Cohn, Fortune Williams,
and Rodolfo Santos took up where Dr. Procter left off by seeing as many as
80 or more patients a day, and wrote excessive amounts of narcotic
prescriptions without a legitimate medical purpose."

During that time, Procter was still in charge, the statement says, and
"regularly encouraged the doctors directly or indirectly through his office
managers to see more patients each day and had them to write narcotic
prescriptions for his patients."

In the statement, Molloy asked Procter whether his patients were addicted.

"They were addicted," Procter replied.

"You knew it?"

"I knew it."

"You didn't cut them off?" Molloy asked.

"No, I did not."

"And you did it in order to get cash?"

"Correct," Procter said.

During the hearing yesterday, Procter said Sadler and Dials were actively
involved in running the practice and were aware that most of its patients
were "drug-seekers."

According to the plea agreement, Snyder was home sick for several days in
the spring of 1999, leaving the clinic without a doctor, but Sadler and
others went to his home and had Snyder sign more than 100 blank
prescriptions, then filled them in for narcotics and gave them to patients.

Procter said in court that he had a six-year sexual relationship with Dials
and that "she profited greatly" from his practice. "She had a very nice
lifestyle," he said, adding that she lives in a house worth more than
$200,000, with an in-ground pool, and drives a new car.

In his written statement to prosecutors, Procter said he had listened to a
recording of a conversation Dials had with an employee of a physician
recruitment agency "where she said we'd all be rich if we had a physician
write OxyContin," a powerful painkiller that has been widely abused.

The other Eastern Kentucky doctors who have been convicted are:

* Snyder, who worked at Procter's clinic for about six months in 1999,
then opened his own office in South Shore, where he made $2,100 a day.
Snyder pleaded guilty in April 2001 to five federal felony
prescription-drug and firearms charges. He admitted prescribing painkillers
for patients with the agreement that the patients would split the drugs
with him. He has not been sentenced.

* Cohn, who worked at Procter's clinic in 1999 and 2000, then opened a
pain clinic in Paintsville. He pleaded guilty Feb. 18 to federal felony
charges of prescribing painkillers without a medical purpose. He admitted
illegally dispensing up to 1 million pain pills. He has not been sentenced.

* Williams, who worked for Procter in 2000, then moved a few miles away to
a clinic in Garrison, in Lewis County. He was convicted March 17 by a Lewis
County jury on four felony counts of illegally prescribing controlled
substances. He was sentenced this month to 20 years in prison.

* Yakov Drabovskiy, who worked with Cohn in Paintsville. A federal jury
convicted him April 7 of two counts of writing prescriptions without a
medical purpose and one count of conspiracy to illegally distribute
prescription drugs. He has not been sentenced.

* Ali Sawaf, a Harlan physician who on some days prescribed OxyContin for
more than 100 patients. He was convicted in January 2002 of prescribing the
drug without a medical purpose and is serving a 20-year sentence.