Dr. Mangino Makes Bail!

Dr. Mangino Makes Bail Pending Sentencing; William Mangino with Comments by Alex DeLuca; War on Doctors/Pain Crisis blog of the Pain Relief Network; 2007-08-05.

I have “Bonded” out of jail as of 5 P.M. today.

I thank those several people who contributed the $ 3900 dollars I neede to be released. My attorneys also worked very hard.

As you are now aware there were serious Jury problems in this case. It is my worst nightmare that at least three jurors refused to sign a guilty verdict form but were coerced into signing by the jury foreman - who, incidentally, was nearly reprimanded for falling asleep on the first two days of the trial. He was probably tired from being up all night watching re-runs of ‘The Hunting Channel.’

Now I know what Mary Baluss meant when she asked me “Have you ever seen a real trial”? I never really believed that people could get away with telling lies during testimony under oath. In reality, every witness testifying against me, except two, lied or significantly twisted the truth in my trial. The most honest guy was The DEA Agent who admitted that the government had no definition of legitimate medical practice. But the jurors never fully understood that this meant that they needed to factor that into their decision.

The biggest liar was Special Agent Smith. His coach, prosecutor Jeff Baxter almost ties him for first place. Coming in third was a Medicaide fraud investigator - but a very distant third, at that; to his credit. He said that there were plenty of pain specialists who saw medicaide patients located between Pittsburgh and New Castle - he just forgot to mention that while they might have listed themselves as pain treating doctors; none of their treatments were designed to actually have any significant degree of efficacy in treating chronic refractory pain - not to mention that Medicaide only insurance plans don’t get patients into offices of anesthesiologists for injection therapy - or for sophisticated diagnostic testing.

His lack of informative testimony was specifically orchestrated to create the impression for the jurors that people who went to Doctor Wagman’s office must have all been drug seekers - for why else would they travel 60 miles to New Castle when they easily could have seen doctors in the Pittsburgh area — not to mention that none of the eleven patients considered in the charges against me even came from Pittsburgh.

A long time ago I wrote a brief asking “The Court to “Rule” in the following manner” - where I argued that on account of “Myth and Prejudice” no doctor charged with overprescribing could possibly get a fair trial. Therefore, it is an absolute violation of that charged doctor’s Fourteenth Amendment right to a fair trial — given that no doctor can POSSIBLY get a fair trial once accused of violating a controlled substance act. Because no juror CAN EVER GET IT RIGHT.

The only jurors in my trial who came close to getting it right were nursing students and drug reps. Is it their fault? No. They should never be placed into that position. They are incapable of assorting complex medical data. These cases require special courts.

I will be sentenced on September 14th. I need help in assembling a first class legal team to brief The Pennsylvania Superior Court. I will spend the next six weeks organizing for my appeal - which will be filed immediately after sentencing.

Now is the time for the pain management community to rally around this case. Here we have the classic example of employing civil standards [ less compelling than malpractice standards-in this case ] to gain criminal conviction.

This is as “Clean” a case as you’ll find. The statute must be voided based upon it’s being overly broad, failing to describe all of the elements of the crime, and failure to warn. The suppression issue here is also compelling - under Stansbury v. California given that the state investigators both through word and deed placed me in a position where I was unable to shun questioning having been placed at the mercy of The State Board of Medicine’s request that I partake in an interview which I strongly felt was unavoidable; based on my impression of the totality of circumstances. Recall that the original complaint made by me to The Board was based on Wagman being “Impaired” - not a criminal.

Therefore; the integrity of reporting is now called into question.

Quoting from Stansbury: “Mr. Chief Justice, is that the test that this Court has applied for determining whether there’s custody for the purpose of Miranda is whether a reasonable person, in the standpoint of the defendant, believes that he has a choice, and the facts that I am relating to you are the facts from which we would conclude that a reasonable person would not believe that he had a choice.”

Judge Motto, after hearing oral argument and testimony surrounding statements made during non-custodial interviews, concluded that statements were not to be suppressed because investigators let me go at the end of the interviews. Quite simply stated, Judge Motto applied the wrong standard, commited an error, and failed to mention Stansbury in his decision; which he limited to Pa. case law.

Please contact me directly with any questions or offers of help - and I will put you in touch with one of my attorneys in order to insure continuity of communication. Consider me a pro se litigant at this stage. My lawyers understand that this approach is the only effective way to get the ball rolling-since they are both very busy.

Once again. thanks for all your support.

– Bill Mangino manginomd@yahoo.com

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