CLINIC RAISED SUSPICIONS LONG BEFORE DRUG ARRESTS

For a long time, people here suspected there was something odd about Dr.
Frank Fisher.

Patients came to his storefront clinic at all hours. Some stayed just a few
minutes and drove 10 miles to fill a prescription in Redding instead of
using the pharmacy next door.

People in the know even gave him a nickname. They called him "Dr. Feelgood."

State and local authorities were suspicious, too, but their case against
the 45-year-old Harvard Medical School graduate didn't come together until
three people were dead of drug overdoses. On Thursday, murder charges and
24 counts of drug dealing and bogus Medi-Cal billings were filed against
Fisher and the owners of the Shasta Pharmacy in south Redding who filled
his prescriptions.

"This goes back to '96 and '97, when we started hearing reports about
over-prescribing and excessive (Medi-Cal) billing," Tom Temmerman, a senior
assistant state attorney general in charge of Medi-Cal fraud, said Friday.

"We tried to do some undercover operations but we had a hard time getting
in to see the doctor. It was 2 1/2 or three hours away. There was nothing
major. It was just another case. They take time to develop."

Then late last year, after hearing more complaints from people in town,
Temmerman said his staff decided it was time to step up the investigation
or drop it once and for all. With help from the state Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement, the California Board of Pharmacy and local drug agents,
everything came together in the past few weeks.

"That's when we started talking to the coroner and putting two and two
together," Temmerman said. "We started discovering bodies that seem to be
attributed to overdoses of drugs prescribed by this doctor."

Three local residents, all patients of Fisher, whose busy Westwood Walk-In
Clinic is across the street from a Shasta County sheriff's substation and
around the corner from the Anderson police station, have overdosed on the
drug since July, according to Lt. William Cox, deputy Shasta County
coroner. "The investigation is continuing and there may be some more cases
that the attorney general's office is looking at," Cox said.

Fisher and the pharmacy were allegedly so cavalier in writing and
processing their prescriptions that the instructions on the bottles of
pills that went to patients suggested taking enough of the pills to be a
fatal dose, Temmerman said.

Oxycodone is a stronger narcotic than the more common painkiller Vicodin
and is considered much more powerful than codeine. Several pharmacies in
the area said they were so suspicious of all the prescriptions written by
Fisher that they stopped serving his patients.

Bruce Johannsen Jr. 19, and Tamara Stevens, 38, each were determined to
have died from overdosing on oxycodone, which is usually prescribed for
terminal AIDS and cancer patients in acute pain. The third deceased Fisher
patient, Rebecca Mae Williams, 34, overdosed on the drug, too, but her
exact cause of death has not been determined.

"Today is beautiful," David Lonie, owner of a printing business across the
street from the clinic, said as residents expressed relief at the arrests.
"You can see the building. The door never stopped swinging over there."

Temmerman said the number of prescriptions issued by Fisher and filled at
the Redding pharmacy began to escalate dramatically late last year, about
the time the investigation picked up.

According to Patricia Harris, executive officer of the state Board of
Pharmacy, the Shasta Pharmacy, whose owners Stephen and Madeline Miller
were named in the same charges filed against Fisher, was the No. 1
purchaser of oxycodone in California and 10th in the nation.

"It was one of the worst cases we've seen in long time," Harris said. "It
definitely got our attention."

Nevertheless, the case, one of 450 actively under investigation by the
state at any time, dragged on for months despite an intricate system of
checks and balances.

When a pharmacist receives a drug from the wholesaler, a report goes to
state and federal drug enforcement agencies, said Carlo Michelotti, chief
executive officer of the California Pharmacists Association. Similarly,
when a prescription for the drug is filled, a copy is also to be filed with
the state Department of Justice within 15 days.

"The flaw in the system is the timeliness," Michelotti said. "By the time A
is put together with B, some time has gone by. The real tip came from the
emergency rooms up there, where someone said 'Hey, we're just seeing too
many ODs on this drug.'"

Bill Davis, a supervisor in the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's
Sacramento district office, said the DEA became aware of the case in late
1997 but it took this long to develop.

"If you look down and see a problem and you arbitrarily cut off the supply,
you run an excellent chance of minimizing how much of the investigation you
are going to be able to complete," he said. "If we had just cut it off, we
might not have had much in the way of a case."

With his long mop of gray hair and a thick gray beard, Fisher was described
by residents of the community of 9,000 as a mysterious figure who ran a
bustling clinic but never participated in any other civic or medical
activities.

He lived in Redding, authorities said, and opened his clinic a little more
than two years ago. He was affiliated with no hospital, didn't belong to
the Shasta-Trinity Medical Society or the local chambers of commerce and is
conspicuously absent from Anderson's Web page that lists all its businesses.

A day after the arrests, people talking about the biggest news to hit this
town in years were not comforted by explanations of how the system works or
how long it takes to complete an investigation. They wanted the clinic shut
down months ago.

"I think the people in Anderson will be relieved now that it's gone," said
Norma Comnick, an insurance agent and former City Council member.

Bee staff writer Emily Bazar contributed to this report.