SEX, LIES AND OXYCONTIN

Jennifer Riggle, a drug addict, was a star witness in the trial of her
doctor, Bernard Rottschaefer. She testified that he had fondled her
breasts in the examination room and then given her prescriptions for
OxyContin and Xanax in return for sex.

In testimony in federal court two years ago, Riggle quoted the doctor
as saying, " 'You satisfy my needs and I'll satisfy yours.' "

Rottschaefer denied the allegations but was convicted and sentenced to
six and a half years in prison. The "drugs for sex" trial in
Pittsburgh appeared to be a triumph for the Drug Enforcement
Administration, which had helped investigate the doctor. But now it
looks more like a frightening example of what's wrong with the
D.E.A.'s war against doctors.

The drugs-for-sex case was based on the testimony of Riggle and three
other women. All were in trouble with the law and had something to
gain by cooperating with the D.E.A. agents who interviewed them.
During the trial, Rottschaefer's attorneys pointed out problems with
the women's stories -- one was unable to say whether the doctor was
circumcised -- but it wasn't until later that the most damning
evidence appeared.

Riggle's former boyfriend, angry at her for dumping him, produced a
batch of letters he had received in prison from her; in them, she said
she had never had sex with the doctor. You might suspect that she just
didn't want to admit infidelity to her boyfriend, but in one letter
she volunteered the information that she'd had sex with another man
for $50.

She explained to her boyfriend that she was committing perjury because
she faced drug charges that could have sent her to prison for six
years. "They're saying he was bribing patients with sex for pills,"
she wrote, referring to the doctor, "but it never happened to me.
D.E.A. said they will cut my time for good testimony. I don't want to
be a snitch but what should I do?" After she cooperated, she received
probation instead of prison time for the drug charges.

In the letters to her boyfriend, she fretted about being caught for
perjury and urged him to destroy the incriminating letters. She
worried she might have to take a polygraph test. She berated herself
for having told another inmate about her perjury:

"See babe, the reason why I've been so down is cause you know that big
secret I told you about the doctor? Well, [I] told someone about it
way back and I am scared to death that she will reveal it and I'd
never go home." Later that inmate would indeed come forward and say
that Riggle had confessed to making up the story about sex with the
doctor.

Rottschaefer's lawyers are now appealing his conviction, arguing that
it should be overturned because of the new evidence of perjury, but
the federal prosecutors show no signs of remorse. (Neither they nor
Riggle's attorney responded to my inquiries about the case.) So far
Riggle has not been charged with perjury.

Instead, the prosecutors are still focused on punishing Rottschaefer.
They've argued that even if he didn't trade drugs for sex, he still
deserves prison because he should have examined patients like Riggle
more carefully and realized that she was an addict who was lying to
him in order to abuse drugs.

That's the same legal argument that has been used to convict other
doctors. But it shouldn't be the job of federal law enforcement
officials to decide what constitutes proper medical practice. Inept
doctors can be sued for malpractice or lose their state medical
licenses, but they shouldn't go to jail.

It's especially unfair for the D.E.A. to go after doctors who treat
pain, because they're dealing with symptoms that are notoriously
difficult to measure. Doctors can do tests, but they also have to make
judgments based on what patients tell them -- and the Rottschaefer
case ought to show the federal drug warriors how tricky those
judgments can be.

If you believe Riggle's letters, as I do, there are two possible
conclusions about the behavior of the D.E.A. agents and prosecutors.
At worst, some of them illegally encouraged a witness to commit
perjury. At best, they were duped.

The agents and prosecutors are supposed to be experts at detecting
liars, and they had far better investigative tools available to them
than Rottschaefer did. Yet they apparently weren't careful enough or
shrewd enough to see through Riggle's story. If they don't deserve
prison time for that mistake, neither does her doctor.