FORMER PATIENTS TESTIFY IN DRUG CASE

FLORENCE -- A former patient of the Comprehensive Care and Pain Management
Center in North Myrtle Beach testified in federal court Wednesday that one
of the three former clinic doctors on trial for illegal drug distribution,
health care fraud and money laundering prescribed OxyContin to his fiancee
when she was six months pregnant.

Gerald Gantt is one of several former clinic patients who have testified in
the ongoing trial of Drs. Ricardo Alerre, Deborah Bordeaux and Michael Jackson.

Gantt said although he was never treated by Alerre, his fiancee was. He
said despite the fact that she was six months pregnant, Alerre prescribed
the powerful narcotic OxyContin.

"She went to the clinic to get pain medicine," Gantt said. "He (Alerre)
said he was a little concerned about prescribing Oxy-Contin to someone in
her condition, but he ended up doing it, just cutting the quantity from 60
to 90."

Gantt, who is serving a prison sentence for conspiracy to possess and
distribute Oxycodone in connection with the case, said he began driving
from his home in Lancaster to Myrtle Beach on a regular basis in 1996 to
obtain narcotics from the clinic.

"I had heard there was a clinic in Myrtle Beach that gave out large amounts
of drugs, so I decided I would make an appointment with the clinic to get
some of those narcotics," he said.

Gantt said on his first visit, he was seen by Dr. D. Michael Woodward, the
former owner of the clinic who already pleaded guilty to lesser charges in
connection with the case. He said he told Woodward he'd been in a car
accident and was having back pain. He said Woodward gave him "basically no
physical examination" before writing him a prescription for 84 tablets of
the painkilling narcotic Loricet.

"I had asked him for another painkiller, Tylox, but he prescribed the
Loricet instead," Gantt said. "He said if the Loricets weren't doing no
good to come back the next day, and he'd prescribe the Tylox."

Gantt said he did just that. During the visit, Gantt said he and Woodward
had a strange conversation.

"He told me, 'Don't let this prescription get you in trouble,'" Gantt said.
"I asked him what he meant, and he said, 'If you were to lose this or it
was to get stolen, I'd need a police report to prove that before I could
write you another."

Gantt, a drug abuser for about 30 years by then, said he re-turned to
Lancaster, filed a false police report indicating the drugs had been
stolen, then returned to the clinic to get another.

Over the next year or so, Gantt said he began referring other drug users
from Lancaster to the clinic and even driving them there in exchange for
half of whatever painkillers they were prescribed.

Gantt eventually was terminated from the clinic after the staff counselor
found out he was trying to buy prescriptions from other people in the
waiting room and seeing other physicians between clinic visits to get more
narcotics.

However, a few years later, Gantt said he returned to the clinic and was
seen by Bordeaux without any questions. Again, he said he had been injured
in a car wreck and was suffering from chronic pain.

"That was my typical line -- the car wreck that never happened," Gantt said.

Though she did not physically examine him and spoke with him for less than
five minutes, Gantt said Bordeaux wrote him another prescription for the
narcotic painkiller Norco.

On cross-examination, Gantt admitted he had obtained prescriptions for
powerful narcotic painkillers from other physicians outside the clinic.
However, he said those doctors did not continue to prescribe him drugs.

"Occasionally, I'd get a few pills here and there from other places, but
they all figured me out pretty quick," he said. "That's why I had to keep
going back to Myrtle Beach."

Another former patient, Kevin Larimore, testified Wednesday that he was
prescribed large amounts of OxyContin with little to no physical
examination. He said he then turned around and sold the drugs on the street
for anywhere between $10 and $75 on the street.

Testimony in the trial will resume at 10 a.m. today at the McMillan Federal
Building in Florence.