CRIMES
Patricia Hough, Florida Psychiatrist, Sentenced
Patricia Hough Press Release Florida Doctor Sentenced for Federal Tax Crimes Friday, May 9, 2014 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs Doctor Maintained Multiple Offshore Bank Accounts at UBS and Other Foreign Banks That Concealed More Than $60 Million in Income and Assets Dr. Patricia Lynn Hough, of Englewood, Florida, was sentenced today to serve two years in prison and three years supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge John Steele in Fort Myers, Florida, for conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by concealing millions of dollars in assets and income in offshore bank accounts at UBS [...]
Joel Rice, Oregon Psychiatrist, sentenced for shooting cows
Capital Press Psychiatrist sentenced in cattle shooting --Excerpt LA GRANDE, Ore. — A psychiatrist from Eastern Oregon has pleaded guilty to seven counts of first degree animal abuse for shooting several cows last year. Joel Rice, 57, was sentenced to two days in jail and two years of probation, as well as $1,600 in fines and 369 hours of community service. As conditions of his probation, Rice must also build a corral on his property to hold trespassing cattle and rebuild a fence that separates his property from a neighbor’s. In August 2013, Rice shot seven cows that had wandered [...]
Alen Salerian, DC psychiatrist – unfit to stand trial
Alen Salerian Washingtonian Alen Salerian Declared Unfit to Stand Trial By Ariel Sabar April 8, 2014 -- Excerpt Alen Salerian, the psychiatrist whose downfall was chronicled in Washingtonian’s February issue (“The Spectacular Unraveling of Washington’s Favorite Shrink”), has been found unfit to stand trial. A federal judge in southwestern Virginia last Friday declared Salerian “mentally incompetent” to assist in his own defense and indefinitely postponed his trial on felony charges of distributing narcotic painkillers to people with no legitimate need for them. According to the judge’s ruling, Salerian’s own lawyers at Katten Muchin Rosenman concurred with a court-appointed forensic psychologist’s [...]
Mikhail Presman, Brooklyn Psychiatrist, Sentenced
Mikhail Presman PRESS RELEASE Former Veterans Affairs Psychiatrist Sentenced To 18 Months’ Imprisonment For Medicare Fraud Thursday, March 13, 2014 For Immediate Release U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York Dr. Mikhail Presman Falsely Claimed To Provide At-Home Services While Employed Full-Time At A VA Hospital BROOKLYN, NY – Dr. Mikhail L. Presman, a licensed psychiatrist employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), was sentenced today by Judge I. Leo Glasser in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, to 18 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release for Medicare fraud. As part of [...]
Richard Sofinowski, Austin psychiatrist, Suspended
Austin American-Statesman Medical board suspends Richard Sofinowski, psychiatrist accused in Austin drug ring --Excerpt A Texas Medical Board panel has suspended the license of Austin psychiatrist Richard Edward Sofinowski who was indicted on drug charges last month, the board announced Monday. The panel took the action Feb. 6 saying that Sofinowski’s medical practice posed a continuing threat to public welfare. In November, he was arrested at his residence by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office after authorities searched his home and discovered 11.5 grams of methamphetamine and several hundred tablets of controlled substances, according to [...]
David Brizer, NY Psych, Sentenced
LOHUD Former Nyack psychiatrist gets probation for selling oxy scripts --Excerpt A psychiatrist once associated with the Nyack Hospital drug-treatment program has been sentenced to probation, community service and fined $5,000 for selling drug prescriptions worth millions of dollars. Dr. David Brizer, 60, received the non-jail sentence Monday on the prosecution by the state Attorney General’s Office, which brought the 55-count indictment. Brizer faced up to one to three years in prison under a plea agreement before Rockland County Court Judge William Nelson at the County Courthouse in New City. Brizer, who was last affiliated with Nyack Hospital in [...]
Jackson Dempsey, Oregon psychiatrist, sabotaged biking trails
The Columbian Psychiatrist who vandalized trails says he regrets actions, is building practice --Excerpt MEDFORD, Ore. — The former Jackson County psychiatrist who vandalized mountain biking trails in the Ashland watershed says he regrets his actions and is moving forward with a new psychiatry practice. Jackson Tyler Dempsey, 58, was charged in August 2012 with fourth-degree assault and two counts of recklessly endangering another person after he admitted to stringing nylon cord and laying nails and vegetation across trails in the Ashland watershed in summer 2012. Dempsey told a Forest Service arresting officer that he vandalized the trails because [...]
Ali Salim, Ohio Psychiatrist, Sentenced
Ali Salim The Columbus Dispatch Doctor sentenced to 36 years for killing pregnant woman --Excerpt DELAWARE, Ohio — A doctor who admitted to killing a pregnant woman and her unborn daughter in the summer of 2012 was sentenced today to serve 36 years and 4 months in prison. Ali Salim, 44, pleaded guilty in October to killing 23-year-old Deanna Ballman after she answered a Craigslist ad he’d placed for a prostitute. Ballman was nine months pregnant at the time of her death. Her unborn daughter, whom she’d planned to name Mabel, also was killed... Until his arrest, Salim was an [...]
Mark Greenbain, Michigan Psychiatrist, sentenced
Mark Greenbain Propublica ‘Let the Crime Spree Begin’: How Fraud Flourishes in Medicare’s Drug Plan --Excerpt In early 2011, federal investigators wiretapped the phones of Babubhai Patel, the owner of several Detroit-area pharmacies. They suspected him of improperly dispensing narcotics and other controlled drugs. The investigators learned that Patel wasn’t just peddling painkillers. The 51-year-old pharmacist had a stable of doctors willing to write Part D prescriptions for any drug he wanted, any time he wanted. In return, the doctors got cash, a flock of new patients and, in at least one case, a down payment for an office building, [...]
Abhishek Shah, Connecticut Psychiatrist, Sentenced
Abhishek Shah Hartford Courant PSYCHIATRIST PLEADS NO CONTEST --Excerpt A psychiatrist accused of sexually assaulting a woman in West Hartford a year ago was sentenced to probation Monday after he pleaded no contest to reduced charges. Abhishek Shah, 32, who was a second-year general psychiatry resident at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington at the time, was sentenced in Superior Court to two years of probation. He pleaded no contest to charges of third-degree assault and second-degree unlawful restraint, both misdemeanors, minutes before his sentencing. His original charges were first-degree sexual assault, second-degree unlawful restraint, third-degree assault and [...]