$40M Award for Stroke Patient; Doc Sentenced for Tax Evasion; Deadly ED Delay Suit

— A weekly roundup of healthcare's encounters with the courts

MedicalToday
Legal Break over a blindfolded Lady Justice statue holding scales.

An Illinois man who was left permanently disabled after a stroke was in a medical malpractice lawsuit. (ABC Chicago)

Louisiana physician Melissa Rose Barrett, MD, has been sentenced to 52 months in prison for tax evasion, . Barrett owned and operated two urgent care clinics and owed the IRS about $1.6 million in income taxes, prosecutors said.

Danielle Simonson, NP, of New York, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for prescribing medically unnecessary opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants, .

Omar Marar, MD, the Michigan physician accused of threatening to kill medical staff at Ascension St. Mary's earlier this year, is now facing a lawsuit from another hospital employee who alleges Marar . (ABC 12)

An Illinois family filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging long emergency department wait times at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, . (KY3)

Two have been filed against health facilities that employed former nurse Heather Pressdee, who has been accused of killing patients with insulin. (WTAE)

California nurse Jacob Daniel Hartman was arrested for at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Riverside. (KTLA)

Michigan doctor Rainna Furnari Brazil, DO, has been accused of through a bogus disability insurance claim. (CBS 3)

As part of its bankruptcy case, Endo Health Solutions will pay the U.S. up to $465 million to settle criminal and civil claims over its role in the opioid epidemic, . The company will also plead guilty in the criminal case to a misdemeanor charge that it introduced misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. The case centers around allegations that Endo sales reps touted oxymorphone (Opana) as being abuse-deterrent and crush-resistant when there weren't enough data to support these claims.

Generic drugmaker KVK Research pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it introduced adulterated drugs into interstate commerce when it shipped batches of hydroxyzine made with an active pharmaceutical ingredient supplied by an unauthorized foreign facility, . The company will pay a $1.5 million criminal penalty and $2 million to resolve civil claims.

The co-founder of New England Compounding Center has to involuntary manslaughter charges in Michigan. Barry Cadden was previously sentenced to 14 and a half years in federal prison for his role in the meningitis outbreak tied to tainted steroids from his compounding pharmacy. (AP)

A former New York cheese producer has pleaded guilty to charges related to raw milk cheese implicated in a 2016-2017 outbreak of listeriosis, .

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    Kristina Fiore leads MedPage’s enterprise & investigative reporting team. She’s been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com.