Defense Appeals Nurse's Detention
Sep 3, 2008
By: Roxana Hegeman
Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. – Defense attorneys told a federal judge on Tuesday that the charges against a Kansas nurse accused of unlawfully prescribing narcotic painkillers with her husband are not a typical drug dealing case.
“This is a case about medical issues,” defense attorney Eugene Gorokhov said. “This is a case about disagreements with medical issues.”
The arguments before U.S. District Judge Monti Belot came as Linda Schneider’s defense team seeks to overturn the detention order issued by a lower magistrate judge. Belot said he would take the issue under advisement, noting it may take awhile to review the large case file.
Schneider remains jailed under a federal magistrate’s order deeming her a flight risk and denying her release on bond. Her husband, Dr. Stephen Schneider, also is charged in the case but was freed from custody in April. They were arrested in December.
The defense contended that the presumption for incarceration in drug dealing cases should not be applied to the nurse because there are no drug cartel or outside drug dealing connections in the case.
But prosecutors argued that it does not matter whether it is a typical drug case.
“I agree this is not a typical drug case, but for a different reason,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway, noting the case differs from other drug dealing cases in that the Schneiders are faced with charges linked to 58 overdose deaths.
The couple have pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment accusing them with directly causing four deaths and contributing to 21 deaths. Their Haysville clinic, which is now closed, has been linked to 58 accidental overdose deaths.
The Schneiders are charged with conspiracy, unlawful distribution of controlled substances, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, health care fraud, health care fraud resulting in death and illegal monetary transactions. The government is also seeking the forfeiture of their property.
Prosecutors contend the couple’s Haysville clinic was a “pill mill” operating outside established medical standards. The defense counters that the federal government is improperly interfering in the patient-doctor relationship in medical treatment decisions.
Belot has already rejected arguments over the constitutionality of applying federal drug statutes to doctors. He told defense attorneys in court Tuesday that he did not intend to revisit that constitutionality issue in his order regarding the nurse’s detention.
The defense argued that electronic monitoring is sufficient to keep track of her whereabouts until her Feb. 2 trial, noting the government would know within seconds if she tried to flee.
The prosecution contends Linda Schneider has the desire and means to flee to Mexico, and notes the defense has not rebutted the fact that she has a house, bank account and a Mexican national that she considered her adopted son in Mexico.
The government also contended she is a danger to the community, noting recorded statements she made from jail threatening her previous court-appointed defense attorney and the prosecutor.
Her attorneys called her statements injudicious and ill-advised, but said they did not rise to the level of danger to the community.
The magistrate judge already had ruled those statements appeared to be more blowing off steam by the defendant than posing a real threat.
Defense attorneys also noted that while on probation for an earlier felony case involving Social Security fraud, Linda Schneider was allowed to travel to Mexico and always returned as scheduled even though she knew the couple were under federal investigation.
“She purports to be an innocent flower of goodness,” Treadway told the judge.
But instead, Treadway called the defendant “conniving, manipulative” and said she continued to flout the law since some of the charges in the indictment cover alleged crimes that occurred while she was out on probation.
The judge noted that Schneider is presumed innocent until her trial.
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