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KING-TV
Dr. Antoine Johnson claimed in 2009 that he was targeted for prosecution because he was a 'young, successful black man.'
After a manhunt that took federal agents to Madagascar, a Seattle-area doctor known as "the Candy Man" for indiscriminantly writing painkiller prescriptions for hundreds of patients was sentenced to 12 years in prison Thursday and ordered to pay more than $1.2 million in restitution.
Antoine Johnson was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Wash., south of Seattle, for health care fraud, drug distribution and tax evasion. His mother, Lawanda Johnson, who was his office manager at four western Washington clinics, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
 M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. |
The FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services said Johnson wrote prescriptions for powerful painkillers for hundreds of patients without conducting thorough medical examinations.
Agents raided Johnson's clinics and home in January 2009 after a two-year investigation. Johnson, then 38, fled to the island of Madagascar off the southeastern coast of Africa, but he was detained eight months later because his passport had expired and then turned over to U.S. custody.
Before the raids, two undercover FBI agents visited Johnson's offices posing as patients several times, according to affidavits in the case. Even though they didn't always see Johnson himself and and often weren't given medical exams, the agents walked away with prescriptions for powerful narcotic painkillers and other controlled drugs.
On one occasion, one of the agents arrived to find about 40 people in the waiting room and 50 to 60 others waiting in line outside. The agent said he overheard a woman talking on a cellphone report that Johnson hadn't yet arrived but that "as soon as he gets here, I will get it and I'll call you and we'll hook up. I got a hold of my people."
The agent also said he overheard some patients refer to Johnson as "the script doc" and others demanding "just give me my scripts so I can go."
A subsequent audit of Johnson's accounts revealed double-billing of Medicare, "upcoding" of diagnoses to allow him to charge Medicare higher rates and notations indicating that as many as two-thirds of the patients under review were being prescribed opioids, with many of them on multiple drugs, according to court records.
The day after the raids in 2009, Johnson told a very different story, however, alleging in an interview with NBC station KING of Seattle that he was the victim of racial profiling.
"Look at me. I'm black. I believe they're doing this because I'm a young, successful black man," he said at the time.
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Uh, no Doc...I think you were targeted because
Seems the race issue is escalating as the Presidential elections near? Tell me it aint so.
This isn't a race issue. This is a crime issue. The criminal is trying to pretend it's a race issue. He's the only one. Well, besides you.
Exactly, Rick. This is a crime issue. Fortunately, law enforcement is finally taking this seriously and doing what they can to stamp out "legal" drug abuse. It's situations like this that make it tough on legitimate MD's taking care of patients with catastrophic illness that may need large quantities of pain relievers. Here are a few links of some pill mills that have bit the dust but there are plenty more in the news.
http://www.daily-tribune.com/view/full_story/13956108/article-Authorities-bust--pill-mill--at-Cartersville-pain-clinic
http://www.cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2012/3/12/_3_arrested_in_debar?cmpid=facebook
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8392060
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/748811
Rick-1103809
Well Rick, I'm with you - it's the Presidential race I'm concerned about. Not elected Prez cause I'm black?
Was Johnson the first and only doctor committing such a crime?
Another person pulling the smoke screen "race card" to cover up doing something completely wrong white or black. Our color does not incriminate us nor vindicate us! Our actions speak volumes.
David,
You are another person avoiding the empirically established fact that:
African Americans and people of color are disproportionately targeted for criminal justice.
Where did this doctor first get the idea of running a pill mill?
Color does determine who gets prosecuted and who does not.
WALL STREET is a perfect example of selective, rather NO prosecution of the ungodly.
David, take your out of the sand.
The truth is not pretty, but it will not blind you!
I'm tired of the race card, it's becoming annoying and being used as a scape goat comment if i had a penny for everytime i heard this i would be a billionaire. Stop blaming people for actions you know are ILLEGAL!!!!
And congratulations, Dr. You've set back the agenda of racial equality 30 years by trying to hide behind your race to avoid your criminal prosecution. Way to go, DB.
just passed a law in florida. forcing all patients to go to these so called pain doctors to get type 1 drugs. after the first trip my wife and i went to i refuse to go back. my wife and i were sitting there filling out paper work and these two girls were talking with little black books out. they were trading names of doctors and places and what they would prescribe to them. like oxycoton, vicadin and demeral. i brought this to my wifes attention she just shook her head. we went to this so called pain doctor he asked a few questions about what we took and called them in. thats it! cost of $25 copay. i called the state and they just kind of shrugged it off. up until this new law was passed we would get out meds thru our gp who knows and what we need. i just want to say after reading this article it is insane wht is going on right now!
Maybe the AMA and the FBI need to hook up and put a stop to this. Statistically, this can be caught easily by watching the amount of pain medicine perscribed.
This also speaks to the problem with the government agencies which should be monitoring prescriptions and noting unusual activity. The worst drug crisis we have is with LEGAL drugs, but we spend hundreds of millions on prosecuting so called illegal drug cases. It's time to reset out priorities!
Where is all the MORAL OUTRAGE OF the BLACK COMMUNITY? Oh! I get it! He ain't dead, he just got caught.
If they knew where you were, you would probably find the moral outrage. I love how bigots manage to relate things that are completely unrelated. As to your reference about the other issue, I agree to a point. I think there were no innocent parties. My objection to your post is what the hell does that have to do with this? How do you know that law abiding black people aren't offended by this? I would be. I'm white, by the way. Well, mostly white, My hands are kind of pink....
Can't play the race card here, 'toine. Sorry. Youse got busted, biatch.
Sorry, Dude. You're not a "young successful black man." You are a common low-life drug-dealer and you deserve to get a$s raped in prison.
As a Florida native I've learned a little about Doctors who are nothing but drug dealers & the problems they have caused people who are actually in pain. It's near impossible to get ascript for pain meds & all because of dopers & their drug dealing doctors. I broke my back in an airboat accident in the Everglades & live every day in pain but rarely recieve scripts for pain meds.
Ain't it the truth.
EXACTLY!!! I have failed back surgery and an autoimmune connective tissue disease that leaves me in mind numbing pain all the time. The docs don't understand 'tolerance' so they won't change my meds when they need to be changed because they're afraid. They're scared enough to write ANYTHING because of dumb docs like this that screw it up for those of us that live in chronic, awful pain!! Thank you, you big JERK!!
Why are Blacks always in the middle of chit? We are a minority but we are the most hated group of people in the world. I guess that's why Christ passed the cross to the Black man to carry on his way to be crucified. We are the most hated in America, the only group who did not originally come here by choice. It is a sad state of affairs for our people.
They aren't. It's a human issue. One person's mistake doth not take down a whole group.
I'm so sorry that you feel this way. Wish there was something that I could say to change your mind. At the very least, please try to focus on some positives. Here is just a small list of some achievements that all Americans can be proud of.
http://voices.yahoo.com/honoring-black-history-month-great-accomplishments-871687.html
That's your problem you seem to forget there are other people in the world that gets treated this way but you only look at it from a black persons perspective and wanna place blame on somebody else instead of excepting the punishment for the crime being committed when its wrong its wrong no matter what your color is.
NO, you're NOT the most hated group!! Try being gay.... see how THAT hate plays out for you!
about the guy who said the doctor at the pain clinic he and his wife went to,could not have gotten any class a or b or c nacotics called in over the phone ,that is not likely legal unless he owned the drug store too,that practice of calling in narcotics has been illegal for a long time ,since dopeheads would make copys of prescriptions and change the phone numbers,so calling back to validate would ring at a pay phone,remember pay phones ,those things you put nickles in to make phone calls,remember nickles?
What are you talking about? There's no such thing as class a or b or c narcotics.
They should take a cue from NYS. I am a legitimate pain patient there, and it's hard as hell for me to get the meds I need.
We're caught in such a paradox. The conventional thinking in the last ten years has been "Treat a patient's pain, malignancy related or otherwise". So.....how much has prescription drug abuse become an issue in the last decade?
I am inclined to let my DEA number lapse so patients know that I cannot prescribe controlled substances. That way that will get the monkeys off of my back. And out of my office.
He is far from the only doctor guilty of this. Narcotic peddling doctors are becoming an epidemic in America. They don't have the time (or patience) to correctly examine people so they write out prescriptions to placate patients. I know a lady that gets so many pills for both her and her kids that she actually uses them to pay to get their hair done at the salon (and who knows what else). Imagine my shock to see a 17 year old and a 13 year old both with their own little pain pill bottles to carry around and use every time they have a headache or an ingrown toenail. Doctors pass out prescriptions simply to shut patients up. On the other hand, what else can you do for the patient that won't listen to reason and is too lazy or stubborn to make any lifestyle changes that might actually improve their condition? Pills are SO much more convenient.
His moniker says it all. To have earned the nickname 'Candy Man' --lol, isn't that incriminating enough?
the hospital shouldn't have been required to treat her at all, since she obviously had no insurance.
sorry - wrong article. apparently, the link to this article is still not working correctly and keeps taking the readers to the article about the mom who was unjustly arrested for seeking medical help and died.
really hope that your post was mere sarcasm.
it seems to me that Ms. Brown may have showed all of the classic signs of a bloodclot if there was pain, swelling, fever, redness, in the lower legs. even her complaining of breaking her ankle I am sure after xrays, blood work if they were done would have shown that Ms brown was in a high risk for a clot, their finding that it is sometimes hard to detect sounds silly to me perhaps the dr's should have ruled out the possibility of a clot in the first place. It only makes sense according to her cheif complaint. Whatever!
again - wrong article. Newsvine - the link to this story has malfunctioned since last night. could you please fix it??? ty.
Why is it that every time a black person is caught, the first card they play out is the Ace of Spades?
This Nation would be much better off if physicians controlled the drugs people use for pain, stress and just "feeling good" as opposed to letting the gangs and criminals take control. We put people in prison for minor drug crimes and that doesnt stop them, we try and rehabilitate them but if they are not ready to quit ....they wont. The only way the drug war will ever work is if we start killing anyone associated with drug use.
For some crazy reason people feel they have a right to have a certain measure of control over their lives.