Circuit Court Judge Robert Meadows has dismissed a 12-year-old felony criminal case against operators of a Vero Beach pain management clinic, sharply criticizing the prosecution’s failure to turn over evidence that might have helped the defendants.
The 114-count case against 14 people, including seven licensed medical practitioners affiliated with the Stuart Pain Management Center on U.S. 1 in Vero, included allegations of racketeering, conspiracy, delivery of a controlled substance, illegally prescribing a controlled substance in trafficking amounts by a practitioner, manslaughter, and money laundering.
Doctors at the network of clinics involved in the case were alleged by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to have prescribed more than 2 million oxycodone pills in one year.
Police say patients traveled long distances from out of state to obtain drugs at the clinics.
Various federal, state and local law enforcement agencies teamed up on the case, including the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office and the Vero Beach Police Department.
Defense attorneys for the clinics, owners, doctors and employees filed 28 motions between November 2012 and April 2019 in an effort to gain access to discovery documents referred to as “Brady material,” or evidence that might exonerate the defendants or at least help their case. This evidence ranged from recordings of phone conversations and images of text messages to copies of medical records, written expert medical opinions and confidential informant reports.
Meadows wrote in his Feb. 13 order, “In response to most of the Defendant’s Motion(s) to Compel, the State has argued that the sought-after information is not Brady. This Court has ruled over the State’s objection that the materials sought were in fact Brady as to all requested material.”
The failure of the prosecution to turn over this exculpatory material, Meadows concluded, violated the defendants’ right to a speedy trial.
The evidence requested by the defense included records pertaining to the lead detective and key witness in the case, who was under federal criminal investigation.
A motion was filed by the Defense on October 14, 2014, seeking “specific evidence sought to be disclosed as confirmation that Detective Michael Dilks of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, who is currently the target of a criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI.”
Neither then-State Attorney Bruce Colton nor State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl’s prosecutors worked on the case. “These cases were all prosecuted by the Office of Statewide Prosecution; we never were involved,” said Assistant State Attorney Bill Long, who runs the Vero operations for Bakkedahl.
Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox said, “We plan to file a motion for rehearing before the trial judge this week and our motion will respond to parts of the Court’s order.”
Meadows said the prosecution claimed to be unaware of Dilks’ predicament, but court transcripts contradict this. Meadows quoted the lead prosecutor’s own statement at a hearing on pre-trial motions in the case.
