DeWeese illegally diverted drugs, FBI claims; license suspended

In a sweeping affidavit filed in federal court, the FBI alleges that said Dr. Paul DeWeese, a former Republican state lawmaker from Mid-Michigan, illegally diverted prescription drugs — like Norco, Xanax, and Ritalin — to the street.

It details an allegedly fraudulent statewide operation that dispensed drugs that were medically unnecessary or written without appropriate medical examinations or testing. Some prescriptions were paid for by insurance companies and Medicaid, it also claims.

The probable cause affidavit was filed in the Western District of U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids as part of an ongoing probe into DeWeese’s prescribing habits and his Lansing medical practice. It was the basis for a search warrant that was served on DeWeese’s Opioid Recovery Center/Lansing Pain Management Institute during a raid by a multijurisdictional law enforcement team June 21.

Law enforcement agencies seized patient files and computers during the raid. Those will likely be added to the volume of investigative materials already collected by state health officials and state and federal law enforcement agencies from across the state and presented to a federal grand jury seeking an indictment against the doctor.

DeWeese, 60, represented the 67th House District in rural Ingham County, from 1999 to 2003. He served as majority whip, one of the top leadership positions in the House. He lost a state Senate race in 2003.

DeWeese’s medical license was suspended on July 18 by state regulators. The FBI affidavit indicates health officials were conducting their own investigation into DeWeese’s prescribing practices when federal authorities contacted them. The state website only acknowledges the summary suspension, but does not provide details.

Michael Loepp, a communications team member for the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, the state agency that oversees most professional licensing in the state, declined to provide any more detail about DeWeese’s license.

DeWeese did not respond to a message left at his Lansing office Tuesday morning. Antonio Manning, a special adviser to DeWeese, told MIRS News Service in June — following the raid — that the medical group provides medical treatment for heroin addiction.

But the 46-page affidavit filed by an FBI agent, whose identity has been redacted by the court, lays out a very different picture of DeWeese’s medical operations.

“This investigation revealed that there is probable cause to believe Paul N. DeWeese. M.D. is involved in a number of crimes including (1) the distribution of controlled substances (drug diversion)... (2) health care fraud… (3) the falsification, concealment or cover-up of material facts in matters involving health care benefits programs… and (4) making, or using, or causing to be made or used, documents that contain materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or entries in matters involving health care benefits programs,” the agent wrote.

Diversion of prescription drugs is an allegation that a physician knew, or should have known, that the medications being prescribed would not be used for their intended purpose.

The affidavit, filed to support a subpoena to seize materials from DeWeese’s office, lays out allegations of a statewide operation where DeWeese allegedly knew that pain killers and other prescription drugs such as Norco, buprenorphine, Methadone, Ritalin and Xanax were likely being diverted from his prescriptions to illicit street use and sales.

The FBI agent alleges DeWeese wrote prescriptions for patients as far away as Escanaba, that he would write those prescriptions without a full medical evaluation or exam, and that when Escanaba area pharmacies stopped filling prescriptions on certain drugs, DeWeese had other patients — who were living in his home — take prescriptions to Lansing area pharmacies, have them filled and send them via UPS to the Upper Peninsula. The FBI further alleges that DeWeese continued to write prescriptions and send them by UPS even after he was informed some of his patients had been charged in Delta County with felony counts of delivery of a controlled substance involving the medications DeWeese was prescribing.

The investigation began when a Muskegon area medical marijuana business called the state Attorney General’s Office to express concern about DeWeese’s prescription behaviors at the clinic where DeWeese was providing medical marijuana services.

The FBI agent said that Diane Foster, the owner of Diane’s Compassionate Service, told investigators that DeWeese began working with the clinic in December 2013. Initially he traveled to the clinic monthly, but moved to weekly. She told investigators that she became concerned when DeWeese began discussing offering addiction treatment services from the Muskegon clinic location. She also expressed concern with the number of patients traveling from the state’s Upper Peninsula for services in Muskegon, the agent wrote.

That tip led investigators to review prescriptions written by DeWeese in the state’s prescription database. From that search, investigators determined there were a number of individuals in Escanaba availing themselves of prescriptions from DeWeese.

An addiction specialist from Wayne State University, Dr. Carl Christiansen, reviewed charts of some of DeWeese’s patients from the Muskegon clinic and found “red flags” in those records, including a lack of proper monitoring of patients on pain and other prescription medications with a probability of abuse and dependency. The specialist also noted the distance patients were traveling to see DeWeese. Escanaba is 375 miles from Lansing.

The affidavit goes on to explain how Escanaba is in “the midst of a buprenorphine crisis.” Buprenorphine is a drug used to treat opioid addiction, but can be addictive itself. The drug is less potent than methadone, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website.

The crisis in Escanaba led several pharmacies in the city, including Walmart, to refuse to stock or fill prescriptions for buprenorphine. This, the agent alleges in the court filing, drove DeWeese’s patients to use various pharmacies downstate, including several in Lansing. DeWeese is accused by some of those interviewed by the agent of advising patients to use different pharmacies to get different drug prescriptions filled. For instance, while DeWeese was writing some patients prescriptions for both benzodiazepines and buprenorphine. Consulting doctor Christiansen noted that combination is contraindicated in most medical situations.

The FBI alleges that DeWeese regularly prescribed various drugs, including buprenorphine, ritalin, valium and norco, to his patients in the upper peninsula. Dr. Christiansen’s review of patient files found those prescriptions to be outside the normal care patterns.

In addition to the Muskegon marijuana location, the FBI alleges that the investigation included surveillance of DeWeese’s office where an identified drug abusers and likely diverters were seen entering and exiting. The agent followed the person to a downtown Lansing pharmacy. The patient allegedly filled the prescription and that the vehicle that was transporting the patient and others stopped at Riverfront Park for a time. The vehicle, which had an expired registration, traveled some downtown neighborhood streets before heading north. It was pulled over by Clinton County sheriff’s officials for the expired tags and one of the patients in the vehicle admitted to injecting some of the drugs just obtained from pharmacy.

The affidavit details what officials at a local drug treatment clinic called inappropriate relationships between De- Weese and patients. While acting as the medical director of a local methadone clinic, the clinic officials told the FBI, DeWeese allegedly recruited patients to his private practice, where he transferred their care from opioid addiction treatment to pain management treatment, and prescribed opioids. State prescription records supported that allegation.