The Associated Press

Judge Sentences ‘Drug Pusher’ Psychiatrist To Five Years

By LARRY ROSENTHAL
December 17, 1988, Saturday, PM cycle

A psychiatrist who illegally prescribed drugs to addicts has been sentenced to five years in prison by a judge who called him nothing but a “highly educated, well-placed drug pusher.”
Dr. Edward M. Keelan also was fined $$25,000 on Friday, given a concurrent five-year prison sentence for two counts of witness tampering and ordered to serve five years’ probation after his release from prison.
“The bottom line is he’s just another drug pusher – in a tailored suit,” said Superior Court Judge Leander Gray.
In defense of his drug-prescription practices, Keelan submitted a 2 1/2-page poem entitled “Maverick in the State.” In it, he expressed an anti-tax philosophy and claimed the right to treat patients without state interference.
He also recited part of another poem in which he said voices, including that of Lucifer, encouraged him to try to influence a witness’s testimony.
Keelan, 58, was arrested in December 1987 after an undercover agent from the state Department of Consumer Protection received prescriptions for narcotics from the doctor at his Milford office without any examination.
In October, Keelan entered a guilty plea to six counts of illegally prescribing narcotics, and on Friday he submitted guilty pleas to the witness tampering charges.
Assistant State’s Attorney Francis J. McQuade, who prosecuted the case, said “the amount of damage he has done is mind-boggling when compared to what a street dealer could even think of doing.”
According to prosecutors, Keelan would see a stream of drug addicts and abusers at his office every Saturday, charging each visitor $$20 to $$30 apiece for writing a narcotics prescription. The visits would typically last only about 10 minutes.
“He’s a plague on society. He is a plague on the poor,” McQuade said.
Undercover agents who watched his office said Keelan’s visitors included “every junkie we ever saw or heard of and a lot that we didn’t,” McQuade said.
Keelan’s attorney, Raymond W. Ganim, told the judge the doctor deserved leniency because he is a manic depressive whose judgment was impaired by his failure to take proper dosages of his medication.
“The man needs help. He doesn’t need incarceration,” Ganim said.
But the judge said Keelan’s mental illness could not be used as an excuse for his behavior. In spite of his illness, the judge noted, Keelan had held a number of posts in the medical field in recent years.
Gray said Keelan was nothing more than a “highly educated, well-placed drug pusher” who “did it for the money.”
Psychiatrist Robert Miller testified at the sentencing hearing that Keelan’s illness would not prevent him from knowing the difference between right and wrong.
Keelan’s attorney said the doctor’s poem about being a maverick showed his judgment was impaired, “because if there is ever a time he should be on his knees, this is it.”
The prosecution cited the poem as evidence Keelan “puts himself above the law.”
But the judge said he was not going to be swayed either way by the poem, saying, “I’m not a poetry critic.”
The state Medical Examining Board ordered the revocation of Keelan’s license last August.