OxyContin Trial

OWNER: DOCTORS PART OF SCHEME'S 'TEAM'

Defense Says Clients Got Serious Medical Care

FLORENCE - A defunct pain clinic in Myrtle Beach became an illegitimate
medical practice about five years after it was set up, said its owner Dr.
D. Michael Woodward.

Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center was a "pill mill," where
patient records, medical tests and a protocol for patient treatment were
created as protection against a potential police sting, Woodward testified
Thursday in federal court.

In about six hours of testimony, he also detailed for prosecutors and
defense lawyers how he built the practice and recruited doctors, who
indicated to him they understood the nature of the operation.

In June, a 93-count federal indictment was issued alleging illegal
activities at the center, including illegal distribution of narcotics such
as OxyContin, Lorcet and Lortab.

On trial for charges in that indictment are three former pain center
doctors: Michael Jackson, Ricardo Alerre and Deborah Bordeaux.

The deceptions began in about 1997 when Woodward, facing sanctions from the
S.C. medical board, devised a scheme to keep afloat the neurological
practice he launched in 1993, called Carolina Neurodiagnostic and Sleep
Disorders Center.

Woodward said his practice grew when he took on patients from Myrtle
Beach-based Dr. Julian Hayes after Hayes left his medical practice.

Woodward said he was reluctant to prescribe narcotics because he had been
trained to use non-narcotic pain treatments.

However, many of the new patients he had acquired threatened to leave if he
didn't.

Woodward said he changed the name to Comprehensive Care and Pain Management
Center after 95 percent of his patients came to him for pain treatments.

But Woodward was plagued by other problems.

In October 1998, the S.C. Board of Medical Examiners revoked his medical
license for the second time after he was charged with sexual misconduct and
overprescribing drugs.

The agency had revoked Woodward's license in November 1997, but restored it
a month later after an administrative law judge ordered the board to
reconsider evidence against him.

Because of his troubles, Woodword needed the other doctors at the clinic
because he couldn't legally prescribe drugs.

Defense lawyers Thursday countered Woodward's testimony by attempting to
show their clients tried to provide serious medical care for people who
needed drugs for pain.

Woodward, who holds a medical degree, two master's degrees and a law
degree, said otherwise.

Jackson, Bordeaux and Alerre, like other doctors, were hired at different
times through a physician recruitment service, he said.

Before committing to the practice, each shadowed Woodward as he performed
cursory exams.

Once he had the impression they understood they would be expected to do
similar exams then issue narcotic prescriptions, he hired them.

When asked if they thought they could do what he did, Jackson said, "I got
your back," Woodward said.

Some even tried to cut their own deals.

Woodword said Bordeaux asked him: "If I go along with this, can I have your
father's pickup truck?"

He said he didn't give Bordeaux the truck he had inherited from his father.
Bordeaux and Jackson had fallen on financial hard times before they joined
the center, Woodward said. Jackson had been working in Alabama and Bordeaux
for a nursing home, he said.

Woodward said their responses made him think they would be part of "the team."

Bordeaux was added to the staff to help clean up record keeping that had
become sloppy. He said he also had seen her presign prescriptions once when
she needed to leave work early. Woodward said he never saw her visit with
more than one patient at once.

Woodward said he was preparing Jackson, his medical director, to lead the
clinic.

He said he had seen Jackson sign blank prescriptions. Jackson also had
visited with more than one patient at a time, a practice Woodward frowned
upon because he thought it put the clinic at risk.

Alerre, a former U.S. Air Force surgeon, also didn't indicate a problem
with the way the practice was operated, Woodward said.

His job was to team with Woodward and write prescriptions for patients
Woodward examined, Woodward said.

Trial resumes today, with prosecution witnesses who might include
Bordeaux's ex-husband Thomas Purdy, who said Thursday she asked him not to
testify against her.

Purdy said she offered to let him see their son, whom he hasn't seen in two
years, if he doesn't testify.

All three doctors are free on bond, despite a request Thursday for Judge
Weston Houck to revoke Bordeaux's bail because of her contact with her
ex-husband..

Houck decided to add a condition to her bail requiring her to stay with
Mary Baluss, one of her attorneys, for the remainder of the trial.