Probation, Fine, and Financial Ruin: The Penalty for Not Committing a Crime
9th October 2009
This pathetic outcome is all that is left of a federal prosecution that threatened Martinez with up to 20 years in federal prison, portraying her as a taxpayer-bilking drug pusher. The case, launched three years ago by U.S. Attorney James A. McDevitt, stemmed from Martinez’s willingness to treat people with histories of illegal drug use for pain, a practice that is not only legal but ethically required. In 2007 a jury acquitted her of prescribing narcotics outside the scope of medicine, failed to reach verdicts on related charges of unlawfully distributing narcotics, and convicted her on eight felony counts of health care fraud. After the trial, Judge Van Sickle dismissed the distribution charges and ordered a new trial on the fraud charges. The Yakima Herald-Republic reports that a medical billing expert hired by Martinez’s lawyer “concluded that the convictions were based on misrepresentations by government auditors.” According to the lawyer, “it gutted the prosecution’s case,” which is why McDevitt agreed to a plea bargain instead of retrying Martinez. As for Martinez, she wanted to keep fighting, but she “had run out of money” and assets, having “lost her home in the process of defending herself against the charges.”