Feb 2, 2006 Press Release US Newswire

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor

Contact: Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network

News Advisory:

– Pain Relief Network Holding News Conference on Courthouse Steps Prior to Appellate Hearing For Florida Pain Patient Richard Paey

– Heroic Pain Patient Richard Paey’s Appeal To Be Heard By Tampa, Fla. Appellate Panel on Feb. 7

WHO: Dr. Linda Paey, Atty. John P. Flannery II, Frank Fisher M.D. and Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network

WHAT: Appellate Argument Challenging the Drug Trafficking Conviction of Richard Paey

WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 7 — Press Conference at 8:50 a.m. Argument at 9:30 a.m.

WHERE: Tampa Branch Headquarters of the Second District Court of Appeals, Stetson University College of Law, Tampa Campus, First Floor, 1700 North Tampa Street, Tampa, Florida.

Background information from the Pain Relief Network:

After two mistrials due to government misconduct, wheelchair bound MS patient Richard Paey was convicted at a third trial. Paey, his case now on appeal, is serving 25 years in a Florida State Prison for “illegal prescriptions” that contained a total of 1/2 gram of the controlled substance “oxycodone”; the remainder of the 100 tablets that the government insisted Paey trafficked in was Tylenol.

This is not an exaggeration. These are the hard facts.

According to the state prosecutor who prompted the first two mistrials, the prescriptions were illegal simply because they had been written or issued six weeks after Richard’s last medical exam.

The prosecutor recently said on CBS’s 60 Minutes that he couldn’t believe that Richard Paey needed the drugs for his own pain. But there was NO evidence that anyone but Richard Paey used the drugs. The prosecutor ought to know, his office investigated Paey and his family for two months and found no evidence that Paey was selling his medicines.

Richard was recently moved, in shackles, to a Florida Correctional Facility; one without proper medical care or even wheelchair access facilities.

Ironically, the prison doctor is administering more medication now than Richard Paey was convicted of having for “trafficking.” The Florida prison doctor gets it; the Florida prosecutor does not.

Find out how federal and state authorities are criminalizing pain treatment.

This attack on Richard Paey is an attack on millions of Americans. More than 55 million Americans suffer from serious pain and truly require medication to work and function. But studies reveal that the worse the pain, the harder it is to get pain medicines. People in pain are now feeding the Drug War prosecutorial machine.

PRN, the Pain Relief Network — http://www.painreliefnetwork.org/ — is dedicated to backing litigation on behalf of patients in pain and the doctors who treat them, and has worked toward and financially supported Richard Paey’s fight for freedom.

Siobhan Reynolds, PRN’s founder and president, and a caregiver to a person in chronic pain herself, states that PRN is a “network of pain patients, family members of people in pain, physicians, attorneys, and activists who are working toward a day when people in pain will be afforded the simple dignity and compassion due all ill Americans.” “Richard’s case,” Reynolds said, “is just one example of the outrageous injustices visited upon people in pain.”

Richard Paey’s appeal will be argued by former federal prosecutor, John P. Flannery II, of Campbell Miller Zimmerman located in Northern Virginia. His bio can be found at: http://www.cmzlaw.com/Bio/JohnFlannery.asp

Flannery, Paey, Fisher and Reynolds will all be available for interview following the hearing.

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