October 17, 2003

MICHIGAN: Dr. Couple was selling painkillers illegally and police seized $180,000 in cash from their home .They were charged Thursday with six counts of racketeering and unlawfully prescribing controlled substances. If husband and wife convicted, they could face prison terms of up to 20 years for allegedly making sales to undercover Waterford police of the drugs.

Waterford police testified that undercover officers bought bottles of 60 to 90 prescription painkillers for $100 to $125 from Waterford Institute of Medicine clinic on Elizabeth Lake Road which is run d by both doctors

Wednesday, police arrested the wife at their home and the husband at the clinic where they found thousands of dollars, a single day's receipts sale from drug abusers. The patients must pay in cash at the time they are seen, a desk sign is placed. The court has set up a bond for each at $150,000 cash.

Robert Hamburger, West Bloomfield attorney entered a plea of not guilty for the couple and said there was a lot of cash in their home and clinic because the pair devoted their "high-volume medical practice" to a large number of uninsured people.

Hamburger blamed the charges on "an office screw-up" by a clinic receptionist who sold pills to undercover officers she thought were existing patients because they told her they were in severe pain.

The charges stem from a three-month investigation by the Waterford Township Police Department. Prosecutors said the pair had become U.S. citizens within the last three years.

The neighbors said, the husband and wife were hard-working doctors raising three children ages 10, 16 and 21 in their Bloomfield home, natives of Sri Lanka.The pair had become U.S. citizens within the last three years.