LAWRENCE COUNTY Patient testifies about addiction

The doctor was thinking of fleeing to Australia, his office manager said.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Anthony Villani went to see pain specialist Dr. Philip Wagman to help stop recurring pain that started about seven years earlier, after tailbone surgery.
But after that first visit, Villani said he became hooked on OxyContin -- a powerful painkiller -- and eventually started seeing the doctor every other day and spending $48,000 on drug prescriptions.
Dr. Wagman, 46, of Gretchen Road, New Castle, was bound over to Lawrence County Common Pleas Court on 19 counts of violating state drug laws, 11 counts of Medicaid fraud, two counts of conspiracy and one count of flight to avoid apprehension. District Justice J.V. Lamb issued the ruling after a four-hour preliminary hearing Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania attorney general's office filed the charges Sept. 22.
Dr. Wagman is in the Lawrence County Jail, where he is being held after failing to post $1.5 million bond.
He had left Lawrence County and was apprehended about a week later in Medina County, Ohio.
Jeff Baxter, senior deputy attorney general, added the flight charge Tuesday and presented evidence during the preliminary hearing that the doctor was found with a book "Hide Your Assets and Disappear: The Step by Step Guide on How to Disappear Without a Trace," $13,086 in cash, guns and a receipt for a $140,000 transfer in Medina County.
Doctors charged
Dr. Wagman was charged along with chiropractor Dr. Thomas Wilkins and physician Dr. William Mangino II in relation to their work at Work Med Chiro Med on West State Street in New Castle.
Special Agent Greg Smith of the attorney general's office testified the practice came to their attention by way of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which took note of a large number of narcotics being prescribed from the practice to welfare recipients.
Smith said he also did his own surveillance of the practice and saw carloads of people from far away go inside, stay a short time and leave with prescriptions that they would get filled at local pharmacies.
Shelley Mae Hudson, office manager for Work Med Chiro Med, testified that Wilkins' chiropractic practice was about to close when he brought Dr. Wagman in sometime in 2000. She said they went from five or six patients a day to 65 to 115 per day.
Dr. Mangino joined the practice in early 2003, but was fired a few months later because he was trying to lure Dr. Wagman's patients away, Hudson said.
All patients had to see Dr. Wilkins first and pay a $25 fee. They then saw one of the physicians and paid $40 cash, she said.
Hudson testified that Dr. Wagman gave patients $20 discounts if they referred other patients to him.
Hudson said Dr. Wagman called her after the charges were announced by the state to ask for newspaper clippings and told her he was thinking about fleeing to Australia.
Thomas Figurski, an investigator for Gateway Health Plan of Pittsburgh -- the agency that administers welfare recipients' health-care coverage -- cited records of 12 welfare recipients who filled prescriptions for narcotics such as OxyContin written by Dr. Wagman. Figurski noted that there were no bills for doctor's office visits from any of those named.
"We have a lot of people who have insurance who are paying cash to see a doctor," said Baxter of the attorney general's office.
Villani testified that he, too, paid cash for his office visits and prescriptions until he was broke.
Villani said he came to the practice at the suggestion of Dr. Wilkins, who was his neighbor. He said on his first visit, Dr. Wagman prescribed OxyContin after a five-minute visit. He went back 15 days later for another prescription, this time a stronger dose of OxyContin, he said.