Accused Doctor's Patients Say Getting Paid With Meds Was Easy
Posted on: Sunday, 11 May 2008, 00:00 CDT
By Bob Stiles
Some patients knew Dr. Antoine Francis Cawog as a doctor who would write prescriptions, few questions asked.
In February, Vicki Culp told investigators about a visit she said she made to Cawog's Irwin office with Jacob Kronemar and his stepbrother, John Romantino, because of her back problems, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Westmoreland County Court.
"Kronemar ... told her that Dr. Cawog was a 'writer' who was willing to write prescriptions with little or no reason," the affidavit said.
Cawog, 62, of 102 Foxwood Drive, Unity, is charged by federal and state authorities with two counts of money laundering, 24 counts of violating the state drug act and 10 counts of attempting to commit Medicaid fraud.
The doctor, a convicted felon who was spared the loss of his medical license in the 1990s, has ties to the Middle East and is being detained by federal authorities as a flight risk.
Authorities said Cawog has wired nearly $1.7 million from hidden U.S. bank accounts to a "safe haven in Lebanon" since 2004. Cawog also owes $2.6 million in federal taxes, according to federal investigators.
The state Attorney General's office alleges that Cawog sold prescriptions for pain medication and other drugs to a confidential informant, at times driving his Cadillac Escalade to predetermined rendezvous spots. Authorities also charged Cawog with improperly giving prescriptions to an undercover investigator at his office 10 times.
"Dr. Cawog was prescribing and dispensing as many controlled substances as he could to build a house in the Middle East," said Special Agent Mark Armstrong of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Attempts to speak with Cawog's attorney, Tim McCormick, were unsuccessful.
Paid with prescriptions
Culp told authorities about another visit she made to Cawog's office.
"On at least one occasion, Romantino told Dr. Cawog, 'Doctor, this is my sister-in-law, are you going to hook her up or what? She got a bad back.' Dr. Cawog would write her prescriptions for Lortab," a pain medication, the court papers said.
The affidavit lists other times when Cawog paid workers at his home with prescriptions, including the confidential informant who helped undercover Greensburg and state police investigators.
Kronemar and Romantino allegedly paved Cawog's driveway and raked leaves for him in 2006. "In exchange for the work, Dr. Cawog would write each of them a prescription for Lorcet (a painkiller)," the affidavit said.
The court papers detail Donald Jancic's time with Cawog.
On his first visit in 2006, Jancic gave Cawog $55 and received a prescription for 30 tablets of Vicodin, a pain medication, for back problems, the affidavit said. Jancic made three or four more trips and got the same treatment.
"During one visit, Jancic complained to Dr. Cawog that his back was hurting after sitting in the waiting room for about three hours," the affidavit said. "Dr. Cawog told Jancic that instead of coming to the office, he (Jancic) could send a $55 money order to his (Dr. Cawog's) home address and he would mail a prescription to him.
"Jancic began sending money orders to Cawog's house and, in turn, Dr. Cawog sent prescriptions to Jancic's residence."
Jancic said the amount he paid Cawog determined the number of pain pills he received, investigators said.
Culp, Jancic, Kronemar and Romantino's medical records were among the seven patient histories seized by state investigators last week at Cawog's Norwin Community Medical Center on Main Street, according to the affidavit. The search warrant, signed by Westmoreland County Judge John Blahovec, shows investigators further looked for Cawog's appointment books and his financial records.
Methadone clients rise
Jennifer Ricciardelli, facility director of MedTech Rehabilitation, a methadone clinic in Hempfield, said the number of potential clients is up at least 10 percent in the last week, although she said she can't tie all the increase to Cawog's arrest April 30.
"It just seems a little coincidental," she said.
At least 15 of about 200 patients at the clinic were Cawog patients at one time, Ricciardelli said.
"He was a very popular person of the people we're seeing," said Tom Plaitano, a lawyer and the clinic's owner.
Longtime Cawog patient Holly Pedder, 31, of Penn Borough, said he prescribed pain medicine for her back problem.
"He made us come every two weeks. I have no clue (why)," she said. "Everyone was going there every two weeks. You'd see the same people in there every two weeks."
She claimed Cawog never took her blood pressure or weighed her -- something investigators said wasn't done during the 10 visits by the undercover investigator.
"He'd talk to you, see what was going on, and give you your medicine (prescriptions)," Pedder said.
Missy Dalhstrom, 29, of Arona, alleged that Cawog insisted on having all her testing done in his office. She said she didn't know why.
License in question
Records with the state Board of Medicine show that Cawog's medical license came into question in 1994 after he pleaded guilty in 1991 in federal court in Pittsburgh to one count of filing a false income tax return, a felony.
Cawog, who came to the United States in 1974 and became a citizen in 1980, the same year he started a private practice, told examiners that he was unfamiliar with the income tax laws and procedures. His medical license was suspended for 18 months, but the decision was stayed if Cawog met the terms of his federal court sentence, according to the licensing board's ruling.
Those terms included Cawog serving three months in prison and paying correct income taxes for 1984, 1985 and 1986. He was ordered to pay $25,000 for three years to the Westmoreland County Food Bank and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, provide eight hours per week of free medical care at the Westmoreland Prison, be on probation for four years and hire a reliable certified public accountant.
Since those proceedings, federal investigators allege that Cawog has forwarded money from U.S. banks without notifying bankruptcy court, where he has filed at least three times.
"He has both hidden assets within this jurisdiction and the United States so as to hide the transfers to Lebanon," Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Block said at a hearing this week.
A search of Cawog's home turned up $149,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds he bought between 1991 and 1994, federal investigators said.
The confidential informant who allegedly purchased prescriptions from Cawog told investigators that Cawog had planned to return to the Middle East within three years. That departure was moved up to this month when his legal troubles started, prompting investigators to arrest him.
After the federal hearing this week, Aurora Cawog, the doctor's wife, said she had no plans to leave the United States.
"I love this country," she said.
(c) 2008 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
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