DRUG CONVICTIONS NET DOCTOR 16-YEAR SENTENCE

Father Of Man Who Overdosed Speaks At Sentencing

GREENUP - Following a jury's recommendation -- and an impassioned plea from
a dead patient's father -- a Greenup County judge yesterday sentenced Dr.
Rodolfo Santos to 16 years in state prison.

Santos, 65, of Meyersdale, Pa., last month became the last of four former
physicians at Dr. David H. Procter's defunct medical clinic in South Shore
to either be convicted or plead guilty to prescription drug charges.

Santos was convicted April 28 on seven counts of illegally prescribing
controlled substances at the clinic last year to a paid police informant.
Santos also pleaded guilty yesterday to a second, separate 11-count
indictment for allegedly giving prescriptions to a heart patient who never
visited his office.

State officials estimated Santos wrote prescriptions for almost 3 million
units of controlled substances in 13 months at the clinic, including 11,200
prescriptions for Lorcet, a popular painkiller. Investigators also reported
as many as seven of Santos' patients might have died of drug overdoses,
including 35-year-old Paul Bailey of Grayson.

Before Greenup Circuit Judge Lewis Nicholls pronounced Santos' sentence
yesterday, Bailey's father, Larry Bailey of Grayson, was permitted to read
a statement, asking Nicholls to impose the maximum sentence allowed by law.

Looking at Santos, Larry Bailey asked, "I wonder what you would say to a
man like you, who, due to lust and greed for money, had written a
prescription that your son overdosed on."

Bailey said his son had become addicted to OxyContin in Grayson after a
back injury. "His search for an alternate drug led him to you," he told
Santos. "Instead of you doing the right thing, and getting him help for his
addiction, your lust and greed for money caused his death."

Bailey said his son died Sept. 26, 2001. after receiving prescriptions for
Lorcet and Xanax from Santos.

"What about your family, Mr. Santos?" Bailey asked, referring to Santos'
wife, Donna, and their son, Anthony, 14, who both sat in the courtroom.

"Did you ever think of all the harm and hurt that you were causing or whom
you were causing it to?"

Donna Santos sat on a courtroom bench, shaking her head.

Bailey said he had been treated by real doctors, but he told Santos, "You,
sir, are a phony, a fake, a quack and now a criminal; you have been a
disgrace to your family and the medical profession."

Bailey asked Santos to pray for forgiveness, but not mercy.

"Instead of feeding and profiting from our son's addiction, Mr. Santos
could have gotten help for him," Bailey said. "But, because of addiction to
lust and greed for money, Mr. Santos, Mr. Procter and men like them caused
the medical profession to let our son down and cause his death," he said.
"This action has degraded our entire society and brought harm to us all."

Procter testified against Santos last month only a few hours after pleading
guilty himself in federal court at Ashland to conspiring to illegally
prescribe drugs. He is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 28 in Ashland. Two
other physicians, Dr. Steven Snyder of Louisville and Dr. Frederick Cohn of
Albuquerque, N.M., also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing in
federal court.

Defense attorney Michael Curtis, who said his client would be eligible for
parole in about three years, denied in an interview that his client had
caused Paul Bailey's death.

"If he had, they would have charged him with wanton murder, you can rest
assured on that," he said.

Curtis said his client could not have run a drug screen and polygraph text
on every patient. He suggested any blame be placed on the Grayson doctor
who facilitated Paul Bailey's addiction to OxyContin.

Clifford R. Duvall, commonwealth's attorney for Greenup and Lewis counties,
said that in the plea agreement, Santos agreed not to appeal his jury trial
conviction.

Duvall also successfully prosecuted Dr. Fortune Williams of Baltimore,
another Procter doctor, in Lewis County where Williams helped establish a
pain clinic after leaving South Shore.

"I think 16 years (for Santos) is fair, in light of Fortune Williams'
20-year sentence, because Williams was obviously into this thing a lot
deeper than Santos," Duvall said.

"You get the feeling that Williams was not remorseful at all," he said. "I
think Santos was remorseful -- or a pretty good actor."