DRUGS SEIZED IN RAID; CLINIC CLOSED, EMPLOYEE CHARGED

The Investigation Into Advanced Care Emergi-Center Started In Late
2002.

FORT PIERCE -- A walk-in clinic was shut down, a nurse was arrested
and more than 10,000 pills were seized by the St. Lucie County
Sheriff's Office during a Thursday morning raid.

It was the culmination of a months-long investigation into Advanced
Care Emergi-Center in the 2300 block of U.S. 1, said Sheriff Ken
Mascara. The investigation began in late 2002 after detectives
received tips it was easy to get pain medication there, including
oxycodone, Mascara said.

John Michael McSween, a nurse practitioner at the office, was arrested
on eight counts of delivering a controlled substance, according to
Sheriff's Office documents.

McSween, 56, of 2303 Edwards Road, could face up to $80,000 in fines
and up to 120 years in prison if convicted of the charges. He was at
the St. Lucie County Jail Thursday on a $400,000 bond.

Dr. Darshan Shah, head of the clinic, was not charged, but is
currently under investigation, along with several other employees,
Mascara said. Shah is currently in India and could not be reached by
investigators, he said.

Undercover agents made nine visits to the office between March 6 and
May 30, documents show. On the first visit, the undercover
investigator complained of shoulder pain and asked for Percocet.

McSween reportedly ordered two X-rays on the person's shoulder and
said they showed no problem. He then gave the investigator two
prescriptions for painkillers and another for a muscle relaxant,
documents show.

On a second visit to the office, Shah reportedly told the investigator
he did not want him to become addicted to the medication, but gave him
a prescription anyway after the investigator asked for it.

On the final visit to the office in May, the investigator was given 50
pills at the office and prescriptions for three more drugs, including
Xanax and Percocet, documents show.

The doctor reportedly saw the investigator on three of the nine visits
to the clinic.

Shah has a license to dispense prescriptions, but it is illegal for
prescriptions to be filled without the doctor present, said Rocco
DeLeo, chief of law enforcement for the Attorney General's Office. In
addition to pills, about 600 pre-signed prescriptions -- which are
illegal -- were found inside the office, documents show.

Investigators think that Shah was fully aware of what was going on,
Mascara said.

The Medicaid fraud unit of the Attorney General's Office became
involved after noticing high Medicaid reimbursement bills coming from
the office for prescription drugs, said Spencer Levine, chief
assistant attorney with the general Medicaid fraud control unit in the
Attorney General's Office.

In about two years, Medicaid filled about 7,338 prescriptions from the
clinic for a total of about $300,000. Nearly half of those were for
five drugs -- all painkillers. The high number was a red flag to
investigators, DeLeo said.

"Many people in our community have told me that this is a poison that
affects our community," Mascara said.

Shah opened the clinic in 2000 after working at the emergency room at
Lawnwood Regional Medical Center and Heart Institute, Mascara said. A
message left at the clinic Thursday evening was not returned.

It is unclear how many patients the clinic had or whether any of those
patients resold the drugs on the street, Mascara said. They are
investigating whether anyone has suffered any ill health effects from
prescriptions given at the clinic, he said.

Patient files and billing records were seized in the raid and
investigators will search them for clues, Mascara said. Among the
drugs seized were morphine, hydrocodone and alprazolam.

It is the second time this year the Sheriff's Office has served a
search warrant at a medical office. On April 15, sheriff's
investigators raided the Treasure Coast Pain Management Center in Port
St. Lucie, arresting two people and seizing hundreds of pills.

"The Sheriff's Office is committed to ridding our community of this
kind of activity," Mascara said.