JURORS ASKED TO DECIDE IF PORT ST. LUCIE DOCTOR RAN 'PILL MILL'

FORT PIERCE -- At first blush, even her defense attorney acknowledged
Thursday the sheer size of the case against suspended Port St. Lucie Dr.
Asuncion Luyao can appear overwhelming: Three weeks of testimony from more
than 50 witnesses -- many former patients -- and nearly 200 exhibits.

But when the jury begins deliberating today whether Luyao is guilty of
manslaughter, drug trafficking and racketeering, her attorney urged them
Thursday to "look beyond the surface."

"You have to deal with not what appears to be, but what really is,"
attorney Joel Hirschhorn said during closing arguments.

The six jurors are tasked with deciding whether prosecutors are correct in
their belief that Luyao stopped functioning as a legitimate medical doctor
and became a drug dealer who essentially ran a "pill mill" from her office
in the old Village Green shopping plaza.

Her motive, they say, was greed -- keep her patients addicted to powerful
pain pills and they would keep paying her $80 office visit fee, required
for a refill.

"This was her tool," Assistant State Attorney Erin Kirkwood told the jury
as she held up one of Luyao's prescription pads. "She made a whole lot of
money with it."

Or the jury could side with Luyao, who Hirschhorn says wasn't a good judge
of character but was a caring doctor who was manipulated and lied to by her
drug-seeking patients.

He argued that the state has failed to prove that Luyao, a 63-year-old
grandmother, did not act in good faith when treating her patients and did
not abuse her position.

"She did what she thought in her own professional judgment was best,"
Hirschhorn said. "She might not have been right, but that certainly doesn't
mean she was criminally liable."

She is charged with manslaughter in the drug-related deaths of six of her
patients.

Several of her former patients testified she had a reputation on the
streets as a doctor who would give patients whatever they asked for with
few questions asked. One patient said the price of OxyContin on the street
quadrupled after Luyao's license was suspended.

Others said they went to her with legitimate pain and ended up getting
addicted.

Prosecutor Kirkwood said Luyao's files were replete with cases where she
prescribed addictive narcotics without a thorough physical exam, without a
treatment plan for the reported pain or referrals to specialists. She said
Luyao issued prescriptions to patients who showed obvious signs of
addiction and who even admitted to snorting or injecting the medication.

"The patients ran her office," Kirkwood said. "And the customer is always
right."

Kirkwood pointed out during closing arguments that two pain management
experts described Luyao's practices as "astonishing," "unbelievable" and
"unheard of."

Hirschhorn, the defense attorney, argued it would be hard for any doctor to
live up to the standards of the prosecution's two out-of- state experts,
who he said treat a very different clientele than Luyao's. An expert Luyao
hired testified that she did not deviate from an acceptable standard of care.

"We say this is a case about sadness, about manipulation, about a place
where people who are desperate go because they have no place else to go,"
Hirschhorn said.

He left the jury with this image: "The woman you are looking at is in the
lowest, darkest moment of her life. Her future is in your hands."

Prosecutors sent a different message.

"Her drugs killed six patients in 20 months," Kirkwood said. "She was not
practicing medicine."