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Jun.25, 2010, Source: The Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. — A federal jury Thursday found a Kansas doctor and his wife guilty of conspiring to profit from illegally prescribing painkillers to dozens of patients who later died, in a case highlighting medical treatment of chronic pain sufferers and prescription drug abuse.

Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, were charged in a 34-count indictment with unlawful dispensing of drugs, health care fraud and money laundering. Jurors convicted them of a moneymaking conspiracy that prosecutors linked to 68 overdose deaths. They were directly charged in 21 of the deaths.

During their eight-week trial, prosecutors told jurors the Schneiders defrauded insurers and patients by carelessly writing prescriptions for potent, addictive painkillers to people with severe pain but also to drug abusers who feigned symptoms.

The Schneiders also were found guilty on five counts of unlawfully writing prescriptions and 11 health care fraud counts. They also faced 17 money laundering counts. Stephen Schneider was found guilty on two of those counts; Linda Schneider was found guilty of 15 money laundering charges. The government is also seeking forfeiture of their assets, but it will be up to the judge to later decide the amount.

No date has been set for sentencing. They face up to a life sentence, with the most serious counts carrying a minimum of 20 years in prison.

The doctor turned to face his wife in apparent surprise when the first guilty verdict on conspiracy to commit health care fraud was read, then both stared down despondently as the rest of the 17-page verdict form was read. The couple hugged in the courtroom shortly before they were taken into custody.

The doctor appeared stoic when his wife tearfully told her parents and teenage daughters in the gallery that she couldn't go with them as U.S. District Judge Monti Belot cleared the courtroom. The family left without commenting to reporters.

"The evidence in this case of patients suffering from overdose and death points to the fact that when prescription pain killers are unlawfully prescribed, they can be as dangerous as illegal drugs," U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said in a statement.

The doctor's attorney, Lawrence Williamson, appeared red-eyed as he left the courtroom.

"We are absolutely shocked," Williamson said outside the courthouse. "These two people are totally innocent of these charges."

Williamson called it "a sad day for our justice system today." The defense plans to appeal.

"Dr. Schneider was practicing medicine — he wasn't being a drug dealer," Williamson said.

Kevin Byers, who represented Linda Schneider, told reporters so much of the case wasn't even about his client even if she was found guilty of more counts than her husband. Byers told reporters that even the judge once said it was an oppressive indictment, a reference to a letter Belot wrote last year in which he recounted a conversation he had with then-Acting U.S. Attorney Marietta Parker.

Schneider, 56, operated the Schneider Medical clinic in the Wichita suburb of Haysville. Linda Schneider, 52, is a nurse who worked as the clinic's office manager.

Their case had been championed by Siobhan Reynolds, president of the Pain Relief Network, who contends the prosecution of doctors who prescribe high doses of pain relievers is leading to undertreatment of chronic pain.

"The crisis in pain treatment is going to deepen even further," Reynolds said outside the courtroom. "People are going to have trouble getting care because doctors are afraid this is going to happen to them."

The government accused Dr. Schneider of being little more than a drug dealer who didn't carefully monitor cases, prescribed excessive dosages and wrote prescriptions so freely he became known among some patients as the "Candy Man." Prosecutors said the couple did not alter their practices even after getting notices their patients were turning up in emergency rooms and at the morgue following overdoses.

Testifying in his own defense, Schneider said he only was trying to help and had been duped by some painkiller addicts. He told jurors he never meant to hurt or defraud anyone. His wife did not take the stand.

Defense attorneys argued not only that the federal government was meddling in doctor-patient relationships, but said prosecutors had inflated the number of deaths attributed to Schneider's prescriptions by including patients who died while the Schneiders were in jail, patients who committed suicide, those who took illegal drugs and clinic patients he never treated or had treated months earlier.