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July 9, 2007

Pain doctor guilty on half of charges

By Debbie Wachter Morris

After deliberating almost 16 hours, a jury convicted Dr. William Mangino of nine felony charges yesterday afternoon.

When the jurors returned to the Lawrence County courtroom, they were polled individually about each of the nine guilty counts against the 64-year-old pain doctor from Philadelphia. Those included five violations of the state drug act, three violations of Medicaid fraud and one charge of conspiracy to violate the drug act.

Mangino originally was charged with 11 counts of violating the drug act, six counts of Medicaid fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud and one count of conspiracy to violate the drug act. He was acquitted of the remaining charges.

President Judge Dominick Motto doubled Mangino’s bond from $50,000 to $100,000. He had been free on bail for almost three years.

Mangino was the last of three doctors to be tried after being arrested with chiropractor Thomas Wilkins and pain doctor Phillip Wagman. They were accused of writing quantities of oxycodone for patients who had gone to their clinic for treatment.

People were known to stand in line outside the clinic in the mornings, waiting for prescriptions, and appointment books submitted as evidence showed the doctors often would see 100 patients a day.

An office manager had testified incentives were offered for bringing in as many patients a day as possible.

Wilkins and Wagman were convicted last year and are in state prisons.

Mangino, his shaggy, graying hair falling over the collar of his brown wool sport jacket, was handcuffed after the verdict was read. He is in the Lawrence County jail awaiting sentencing.

His friend, attorney Richard Michaelson of Philadelphia, was in court this week assisting defense attorney Thomas W. Leslie.

Michaelson said Mangino is unlikely to post bond, because “he’s a broken man.”

Mangino had no income after he gave up his license to write prescriptions as a bail condition, he said.

Leslie said he intends to appeal the verdict.

“It’s apparently a compromise,” Leslie said. “They split (the counts) in half, and they even left them in alphabetical order to do it.”

Michaelson speculated the jury may have had trouble agreeing and a split verdict was the result.

However, the jurors explained it differently.

Outside the courthouse, a group of them said deliberations were lengthy because of volumes of evidence and papers they had to review.

They received the case around noon Tuesday and deliberated until 10 p.m. They returned to court at 9 a.m. yesterday, were fed lunch again, then delivered a verdict three hours later.

They said there were no real disagreements during the process. Rather, they split the charges as guilty and not guilty because of differences they found in the medical records while reviewing them.

They determined Mangino had spent time at the clinic before he caught on to what was going on, they said.

“You can only guess, but the names on the (guilty) files were five of the six (patients) whom the defendant admitted to investigators did not medically need the narcotics,” commented Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Baxter, who prosecuted the case.

He credited senior supervisory agent Greg Smith for his thorough investigation.

“I’m certainly pleased with the verdict,” Baxter said. “These three fellows turned this town upside down with their irresponsible manner in which they were prescribing narcotics.”

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