December 14, 2017 at 9:41 a.m.
Former Woodruff doctor has felony convictions vacated
Original prosecutor calls case 'epitome of privilege'
Former Woodruff doctor has felony convictions vacated
By By Jamie Taylor and Kayla Breese of the river news-
Heath J. Meyer, 48, a former emergency room doctor at Howard Young Medical Center in Woodruff, was charged April 7, 2015 with four felonies, two counts each of manufacture or delivery of schedule I, II narcotics and manufacture or delivery of schedule IV drugs, all as a party to a crime.
The charges stemmed from incidents that date back to 2008 and were the result of a John Doe investigation conducted in July 2014.
According to court records, the investigation began after a pharmacist in Park Falls contacted that city's police department to report that a doctor from Howard Young was obtaining prescription painkillers from a pharmacy there using forged prescriptions. After investigating the claims, it was determined that Meyer had obtained Tramadol on 10 occasions and from two different pharmacies in Park Falls using forged prescriptions between November 2011 and June 2012. At that point, the DEA assigned an investigator to the case.
In October 2012, the doctor whose signatures were allegedly forged on the prescriptions was interviewed and confirmed that all but one of the signatures were not hers. Investigators then interviewed several of Meyer's co-workers and they received information that the CEO of HYMC may have received a letter alleging Meyer was writing prescriptions for the mother of a woman who worked at HYMC and also served as Meyer's child care provider. The letter alleged that the prescriptions were written for the mother, who was in hospice care at the time, and filled by the woman who then turned the drugs over to Meyer.
After further investigation detectives determined the woman had also obtained hydrocodone and diazepam from a number of pharmacies using prescriptions written by Meyer.
The woman was called to testify during John Doe proceeding convened before O'Melia. Beginning in 2008, she testified Meyer wrote prescriptions for her because she had prescription drug insurance and her mother didn't. According to the complaint, she said Meyer knew the drugs were meant for the woman's mother, not her, when he wrote the prescriptions.
She also testified that Meyer continued to write prescriptions for pain medicines even after her mother's death in 2010, but that she would turn the drugs over to him. She said Meyer wanted the drugs because he was suffering from knee and back injuries "and it wouldn't look good for him to have that type of medication in his name because he was a physician," the investigator's report states.
Through the records of the woman's health insurance, it was learned she had prescriptions filled for various painkillers at two different Minocqua area pharmacies.
The case was resolved with a plea agreement. Meyer entered no contest pleas to three counts of manufacture or deliver prescription drugs. A single count of manufacture or delivery of schedule I, II narcotics was dismissed but read onto the record for sentencing purposes. Similar charges in Price and Vilas County were not filed as Oneida County was proceeding on felony charges against Meyer.
Branch I judge Patrick O'Melia withheld sentence and ordered Meyer to serve two years probation. As a condition of probation, he was ordered to pay fines totaling $1,172, perform 200 hours of community service and testify at the trial of the woman who was accused of helping him get the drugs. He also was ordered to undergo any treatment ordered by his probation agent.
No jail time was ordered.
Recent events
Last month, Meyer's attorney John Hogan and assistant district attorney Mary Sowinski filed a joint motion to modify the felonies to four counts of uttering a false or forged prescription. which are misdemeanors.
Seven reasons for the modification were listed in the motion:
• As a board certified emergency room physician, even though he had no other criminal record, the conviction has left Meyer unable to find any employment commensurate with his education and experience. If the felonies were turned into misdemeanors, he might be able to practice medicine again, possibly in the military.
• Since his conviction, Meyer has participated in - and met the requirements of - the Wisconsin Impaired Physicians Program which included an inpatient treatment program, weekly urine tests, monthly in-person meetings in Madison, individual counseling.
• Meyer had nearly completed his probation, and his agent had encouraged him to seek early release.
• After his conviction, Meyer gave a "full and detailed debriefing to the State of Wisconsin and to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency."
• The purpose of the motion is to restore Meyer's ability to seek employment.
• Under the circumstances as they now exist, the felony convictions are "unduly harsh" as stated in State v. Crochiere.
• The court has inherent power to "change and modify its judgments after the execution of the sentence has commenced," as stated in Hayes v. State and State v. Dowdy.
At the hearing on Dec. 6, both Hogan and Sowinski made statements in support of the motion.
"The court made the call that this case had been pending since 2013 when we were here two years ago for sentencing," Hogan told O'Melia. "My client then had gone through three years of physicians assistance programming through the state of Wisconsin. He had been tested 48 times a year without any positive drug tests. Since then, he has continued to be tested each and every month by the physicians assistance program out of Madison, and again he has not had any incident."
Hogan added Meyer has had "absolutely no issues on probation" and noted he had advised his client he thought it would be possible to come back to court at a later date and lower the "harshness of the original plea agreement."
"The real motivation for this, judge, is that my client has not been employed now for almost five years. This is has cost him over a million dollars in lost salary," Hogan said. "He could be employed in some health care related manner without DEA privileges, but in all practical reality, he can't do that while he is convicted as a felon."
According to Hogan, Meyer has been exploring the option of become a doctor in the military, possibly in an advance position in a combat zone. However, the felony convictions prevent him from being commissioned as an officer even though he is a veteran. At the time of sentencing, Hogan had submitted letters from officers from two different branches of the service who expressed strong interest in Meyer due to his emergency room training and experience, but only if he was not a convicted felon.
"The military, of course, is crying for physicians to come work for them," Hogan said. "And he (Meyer) has the interest in doing so, and that continues today."
Hogan noted that other local physicians have been successfully treated for substance abuse problems and continue to practice medicine, because they weren't charged with felonies, and argued that it would be "manifestly just" to let Meyer resume his profession given that he has successfully completed the impaired physician program.
O'Melia asked Sowinski if the state had any objection to the motion to allow Meyer to withdraw his plea.
She confirmed that the state agreed to the change.
"This is a case where there is no evidence, that I'm aware of, that the defendant contributed to anyone's addiction other than his own," Sowinski said.
Because of his participation in the impaired physicians program, Sowinski said Meyer was able to get "high quality treatment" for his addiction. She also said prosecutors have learned much more about opioid addiction since Meyer's original sentencing, including that treatment should be the primary concern over punishment.
O'Melia granted Meyer's motion to withdraw his pleas on the felonies and vacated the judgments. Sowinski then amended the charges to misdemeanors and Meyer entered guilty pleas to those counts.
During the sentencing phase, O'Melia said addicts used to be put in jail or prison, their addiction left untreated, but that custom is changing.
"You don't want to put them in prison where it costs $35,000 a year to the state when they can be rehabilitated through treatment and monitoring on probation, drug testing, helping people get over their addiction so that they can go back to their productive lives, in most cases," O'Melia said.
He also said the existence of the impaired physicians program tells him the state of Wisconsin is aware of the magnitude of the problem of addiction among medical practitioners. Meyer having successfully completed the program "was significant," he added.
"Even they recognize that treatment is the main focus," O'Melia said, adding that the felony conviction has prevented Meyer from practicing a profession for which he spent many years training and noted a similar conviction for someone who received a certificate to be a welder would not result in that person being barred from being a welder.
"The idea is that you go back to work," O'Melia said. "The ability to work is critical in, well, self-esteem and keeping people busy, but also means they can take care of themselves and pay taxes. So there are so many pro-social benefits to being employed."
The judge then admitted that he has had issues with this case from the beginning.
"I thought it was crippling to the defendant, it was unduly harsh to the defendant," he said. "I was never comfortable that he would never be able to work in his field that he had spent years establishing."
While this ruling, in itself, doesn't give Meyer the ability to practice medicine again, it does open the door to the possibility, he noted.
O'Melia then ordered Meyer to pay $500 on each of the four counts plus court costs. He ordered no probation because the period of time served under the old conviction "had served its purpose."
The payment of the fines and costs under the old sentence would be applied to the amended charges, however any difference would not be returned to him.
"The clerk's office hates giving money back," O'Melia said. "That fine was paid two years ago."
It is possible, however, that Meyer might find himself in another courtroom in a Northwoods county. Now that the original plea agreement has been vacated prosecutors in Price and Vilas County could still bring charges.
One person who like to see that happen is the original prosecutor in the case, Jodi Bednar.
In an interview with The Lakeland Times' sister paper, the Northwoods River News, Bednar, who is now the Lac du Flambeau tribal attorney, expressed deep reservations about this turn of events.
"This is the epitome of privilege," she said, referring to the vacation of the felony convictions. "I'm hopeful that authorities in Price County will do the right thing to protect the community."
After the Dec. 6 hearing, Sowinski explained her reasoning for going along with Hogan's motion.
"The plea and sentence at the time was based on what we knew about opioid addiction at that time," she said. "We've learned a great deal since then in the middle of an opioid crisis. Mr. Meyer fed his own addiction, and no one else's, and was treated under the presumption that he was a dealer, which really wasn't the way that we currently view opioid addiction and abuse, particularly by physicians."
"There's a lot that a prosecutor cannot control, and one of them is the Federal Prescription Registry. All I can control is what I believe to be a fair outcome in this case," Sowinski added. "It is my very limited understanding that a felony is an absolute bar and that a misdemeanor conviction is something that can be considered. What the folks at the registry do with Mr. Meyer is up to them. And I would only ask them to treat him as they would any other similarly situated physician."
She said Meyer's actions while on probation went a long way in convincing her to go along with Hogan's motion.
"He took advantage of high quality treatment opportunities and used them to his advantage," she said. "That is what we would ask any addict to do. He was incredibly fortunate in that he had access to high quality treatment that very few addicts in our system have access to, and demonstrated what personal choice and personal decisions about behavior can do when combined with high quality treatment. And I think it is only appropriate to recognize that."
Bednar, however, disagrees with the notion that Meyer's actions caused harm only to himself.
"The suggestion that this was a victimless crime is ludicrous," she said. "This was an emergency room physician who literally had the lives of innocent people in his hands and acted irresponsibly and possibly put the lives of people in need of medical attention in jeopardy. We don't know if anyone was harmed as a result of this or not. The bottom line is the possibility exists, if he fails to maintain sobriety and is a practicing emergency room physician, that the lives of unwary patients will be placed in jeopardy."
The idea that Meyer could soon be treating service members is deeply troubling, Bednar added.
"All of our service people deserve sober, competent medical care," she said.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
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