Accused pill mill doctor faces new charges
Already charged with running a pill mill with strippers and members of an outlaw motorcycle gang, a Levittown doctor who once ran to become Bucks County coroner was hit Wednesday with a new set of federal charges.
Already charged with running a pill mill with strippers and members of an outlaw motorcycle gang, a Levittown doctor who once ran to become Bucks County coroner was hit Wednesday with a new set of federal charges.
This time, prosecutors accused William J. O'Brien III, 50, of placing patients inside a contraption that consisted of the leftovers of a large propane tank welded together, which he passed off as a specialized medical device.
In all, they said, he bilked Medicare and other government-backed health-care programs out of $4.2 million for treatments that proved ineffective and put his patients at risk.
But according to court filings, O'Brien managed to con the Lower Bucks Hospital for years with his supposed hyperbaric chamber, which he marketed under the name Hyperox 101.
Hyperbaric medicine, which involves subjecting patients to prolonged exposure to highly pressurized oxygen, has been used to heal open wounds and treat other ailments by increasing oxygen absorption in the blood.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the marketing and use of hyperbaric chambers under strict manufacturing guidelines.
But O'Brien's jerry-rigged device - as sketched out in an indictment unsealed Wednesday - failed under every criteria.
Constructed in 2006 by a Bristol-based company that specialized in building doors for Navy vessels, and made functional by a self-taught engineer whose previous experience included work at a baked-goods factory, the Hyperox 101 was created from two pieces of a propane tank that had been abandoned outside a Coatesville factory.
O'Brien and an accomplice allegedly forged documents sent to the FDA for approval to market the device.
His 2007 agreement with administrators at Lower Bucks - who purportedly believed they were leasing a legitimate device - came as part of a plan to market it to hospitals across the country and make money by overseeing its use on Medicare patients.
O'Brien was found out, prosecutors said, after several former employees became concerned that the Hyperox 101 was endangering patients.
They reported him to the FDA and FBI after O'Brien allegedly assured several of them that the device was just a prototype and was not being used for active treatment.
But prosecutors said the failure of Hyperox 101 and the financial difficulties that followed ultimately drove O'Brien to the other crimes of which he has been accused. His company - WJO Inc. - filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
Soon afterward, O'Brien allegedly turned to pushing pills to support himself. He and his one-time receptionist were charged in January with selling prescriptions for powerful opioids and sedatives for $200 in cash.
Six months later, prosecutors accused O'Brien of serving as the supplier of a drug distribution network run by the Pagan Motorcycle Club. His drug dealing, they said, raked in $5 million in street sales of prescription pills between 2012 and 2015, and led to the death of at least one of his patients.
As federal authorities described it, bikers with nicknames like "Redneck," "Petey Adams," and "Tomato Pie" had the full run of O'Brien's Levittown practice.
The gang members routinely stopped by with phony patients they recruited - some from the Oasis Gentleman's Club in Southwest Philadelphia - and audited their charts to ensure their recruits were handing over for resale the exact number of pills the doctor had prescribed them.
O'Brien became so cavalier, prosecutors said, that he once offered a female undercover FBI agent depressants in exchange for oral sex and, in a separate incident, prescribed Oxycodone and Xanax to a 48-year-old man who complained of pain from his multiple pregnancies, menstruation, and a pap smear.
O'Brien, who is representing himself in court and remains in federal custody, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
He faces charges including drug distribution, conspiracy, money laundering, and health-care fraud.
His wife, former members of the doctor's drug distribution ring, including Pagans members, and an accomplice in the marketing of Hyperox 101 have also been charged.
215-854-2608@jeremyrroebuck