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http://www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/n...s-county-after-being-cleared-of-charges-.html
NORTH WILDWOOD – A South Jersey doctor who was acquitted of distributing illegal painkillers is suing Cape May County for malicious prosecution.
Dr. John Costino, 70, of North Wildwood, and Barbara Haas, his wife and a registered nurse, said the case destroyed their medical practice and caused years of turmoil for them, their patients and their seven employees.
“My true sorrow is for my patients — the thousands and thousands of people I took care of since 1976. I really mean that,” Costino said.
Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Costino was the oldest son in a Scotch-Irish and Italian family in Camden. He watched his father, a carpenter, deal with chronic work-related back pain his whole life.
“He had lumbar disease and he was a miserable guy trying to work after surgery. People who do physical work for a living and have these maladies need these medicines,” he said.
Costino started his North Wildwood practice in 1976 as a general internist with a specialty in sports medicine, pain management, acute care and worker’s compensation. Costino held a certification as a fellow of the American Academy of Pain Management.
He also was certified through the Drug Enforcement Administration to treat heroin addicts with Suboxone. Because of his specialty, he often saw patients referred by other South Jersey doctors.
“You go into surgery and you end up with serious consequences post-operatively that create pain,” he said.
As a pain expert, Costino said he prescribed the appropriate course of treatment, which included a combination of exercise, rehabilitation or medication.
“People have metal plates and rods, but they still have to go to work,” he said.
He was one of just two pain-management specialists in Cape May County when he became the subject of two undercover sting operations.
In the first, a Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office detective posed as a heroin addict who was seeking prescription narcotics. Costino urged the patient to seek treatment for addiction, which led the investigator to file a favorable internal report on the doctor, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
Two years later the prosecutor’s office launched a second sting, this time posing female officers as exotic dancers who were seeking painkillers. Costino examined both dancers and prescribed the painkiller Percocet on multiple occasions in keeping with his respective diagnoses of a chronic back condition and chronic pain that led to sleeplessness.
Around the same time, prescription pads were stolen by two of his office staff and were used to obtain narcotics. Costino reported the thefts and the employees were prosecuted and convicted.
But Costino said those thefts likely contributed to the legal scrutiny of his office.
Prosecutors and police arrested Costino in 2007. Two-dozen police, county investigators and agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration swarmed his northend office while his patients were waiting to be seen.
“You would have thought the Unabomber was over there,” Haas, said.
Costino said he could not believe what was happening when a county investigator placed him under arrest.
“I said, ‘Are you nuts?’” Costino said. “You can’t just arrest a doctor in his office for practicing medicine in good faith.”
This led to a six-year legal battle in which a judge dismissed multiple flawed indictments against both Costino and his wife. A jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Costino not guilty in 2012.
“It was bad enough what they did to me. But then they indicted her just to get to me,” Costino said.
Haas said she has had difficulty finding work as a nurse and physician’s assistant because of the indictments, despite their dismissal.
“They were thrown out, but that didn’t take them off the Internet,” she said.
After the first acquittal, the prosecutor’s office continued to pursue a contempt charge against Costino. In 2013, another jury acquitted him of that as well.
“They seemed to be transfixed in an obsessive way on getting him – getting Dr. Costino,” said John Tumelty, of Upper Township, the defense lawyer who represented Costino at trial. “It just decimated his medical practice and caused such challenges in his personal life.”
Costino is suing the county to recover lost earnings, legal expenses and damages to his reputation along with the humiliation and embarrassment he endured during the prosecution. A second state lawsuit Costino filed in 2013 is pending against the county.
The prosecutor’s office has been grappling with the county’s heroin problem for years. In 2013, the county saw more than 105 heroin overdoses, including 28 fatalities.
Last year the prosecutor’s office gave numerous talks around the county warning parents about how prescription drugs can lead both to addiction and the use of illegal drugs such as heroin. The “pills to heroin” program has been well-attended by parents and social-service groups that deal with addiction.
Costino said the county has a legitimate heroin problem. But he said effective pain management under a doctor’s supervision does not lead to heroin abuse.
Tumelty said the Costino case showed the prosecutor’s office just how complicated the diagnosis and treatment of pain is. One of the undercover agents whom Costino prescribed Percocet had a legitimate back problem for which she was receiving chiropractic care during the investigation, Tumelty said.
He also questioned the choice of posing investigators as exotic dancers. Regardless of the strategic motive, Tumelty said, “It blew up in their face.”
As unseemly a profession as it might be, exotic dancing is a strenuous and physically taxing job, Tumelty said.
“I thought it was a fatal flaw to the case,” he said. “Instead of sending someone in pretending to be a secretary or another job where you’re stationary all day, they deliberately picked a physically demanding job.”
Tumelty said the case cast a shadow of fear across New Jersey’s medical profession.
“There are a lot of doctors who are hesitant to write prescriptions for pain pills for fear of becoming a target of law enforcement,” he said.
Costino’s medical license was suspended when he was indicted. He has not asked for reinstatement yet because of the expense involved, he said. The legal case placed a financial strain on his family, he said.
“They have taken away seven years of our lives that we’ll never get back,” Haas said.
While he was awaiting trial, Costino wrote a book about cardiovascular disease called “This Book Will Save Your Life.” He is writing a second book about his trial.
Public opinion during the case largely sided with Costino, whose patients came to his defense during the trial in letters to the editor and a 2008 rally outside his office.
Haas said neighbors and friends have been supportive. They still see their former patients every day in town. And they always ask the same question, she said.
“When are you going to reopen your office?” she said. “If we opened the door tomorrow, there would be a crowd.”
NORTH WILDWOOD – A South Jersey doctor who was acquitted of distributing illegal painkillers is suing Cape May County for malicious prosecution.
Dr. John Costino, 70, of North Wildwood, and Barbara Haas, his wife and a registered nurse, said the case destroyed their medical practice and caused years of turmoil for them, their patients and their seven employees.
“My true sorrow is for my patients — the thousands and thousands of people I took care of since 1976. I really mean that,” Costino said.
Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Costino was the oldest son in a Scotch-Irish and Italian family in Camden. He watched his father, a carpenter, deal with chronic work-related back pain his whole life.
“He had lumbar disease and he was a miserable guy trying to work after surgery. People who do physical work for a living and have these maladies need these medicines,” he said.
Costino started his North Wildwood practice in 1976 as a general internist with a specialty in sports medicine, pain management, acute care and worker’s compensation. Costino held a certification as a fellow of the American Academy of Pain Management.
He also was certified through the Drug Enforcement Administration to treat heroin addicts with Suboxone. Because of his specialty, he often saw patients referred by other South Jersey doctors.
“You go into surgery and you end up with serious consequences post-operatively that create pain,” he said.
As a pain expert, Costino said he prescribed the appropriate course of treatment, which included a combination of exercise, rehabilitation or medication.
“People have metal plates and rods, but they still have to go to work,” he said.
He was one of just two pain-management specialists in Cape May County when he became the subject of two undercover sting operations.
In the first, a Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office detective posed as a heroin addict who was seeking prescription narcotics. Costino urged the patient to seek treatment for addiction, which led the investigator to file a favorable internal report on the doctor, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
Two years later the prosecutor’s office launched a second sting, this time posing female officers as exotic dancers who were seeking painkillers. Costino examined both dancers and prescribed the painkiller Percocet on multiple occasions in keeping with his respective diagnoses of a chronic back condition and chronic pain that led to sleeplessness.
Around the same time, prescription pads were stolen by two of his office staff and were used to obtain narcotics. Costino reported the thefts and the employees were prosecuted and convicted.
But Costino said those thefts likely contributed to the legal scrutiny of his office.
Prosecutors and police arrested Costino in 2007. Two-dozen police, county investigators and agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration swarmed his northend office while his patients were waiting to be seen.
“You would have thought the Unabomber was over there,” Haas, said.
Costino said he could not believe what was happening when a county investigator placed him under arrest.
“I said, ‘Are you nuts?’” Costino said. “You can’t just arrest a doctor in his office for practicing medicine in good faith.”
This led to a six-year legal battle in which a judge dismissed multiple flawed indictments against both Costino and his wife. A jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Costino not guilty in 2012.
“It was bad enough what they did to me. But then they indicted her just to get to me,” Costino said.
Haas said she has had difficulty finding work as a nurse and physician’s assistant because of the indictments, despite their dismissal.
“They were thrown out, but that didn’t take them off the Internet,” she said.
After the first acquittal, the prosecutor’s office continued to pursue a contempt charge against Costino. In 2013, another jury acquitted him of that as well.
“They seemed to be transfixed in an obsessive way on getting him – getting Dr. Costino,” said John Tumelty, of Upper Township, the defense lawyer who represented Costino at trial. “It just decimated his medical practice and caused such challenges in his personal life.”
Costino is suing the county to recover lost earnings, legal expenses and damages to his reputation along with the humiliation and embarrassment he endured during the prosecution. A second state lawsuit Costino filed in 2013 is pending against the county.
The prosecutor’s office has been grappling with the county’s heroin problem for years. In 2013, the county saw more than 105 heroin overdoses, including 28 fatalities.
Last year the prosecutor’s office gave numerous talks around the county warning parents about how prescription drugs can lead both to addiction and the use of illegal drugs such as heroin. The “pills to heroin” program has been well-attended by parents and social-service groups that deal with addiction.
Costino said the county has a legitimate heroin problem. But he said effective pain management under a doctor’s supervision does not lead to heroin abuse.
Tumelty said the Costino case showed the prosecutor’s office just how complicated the diagnosis and treatment of pain is. One of the undercover agents whom Costino prescribed Percocet had a legitimate back problem for which she was receiving chiropractic care during the investigation, Tumelty said.
He also questioned the choice of posing investigators as exotic dancers. Regardless of the strategic motive, Tumelty said, “It blew up in their face.”
As unseemly a profession as it might be, exotic dancing is a strenuous and physically taxing job, Tumelty said.
“I thought it was a fatal flaw to the case,” he said. “Instead of sending someone in pretending to be a secretary or another job where you’re stationary all day, they deliberately picked a physically demanding job.”
Tumelty said the case cast a shadow of fear across New Jersey’s medical profession.
“There are a lot of doctors who are hesitant to write prescriptions for pain pills for fear of becoming a target of law enforcement,” he said.
Costino’s medical license was suspended when he was indicted. He has not asked for reinstatement yet because of the expense involved, he said. The legal case placed a financial strain on his family, he said.
“They have taken away seven years of our lives that we’ll never get back,” Haas said.
While he was awaiting trial, Costino wrote a book about cardiovascular disease called “This Book Will Save Your Life.” He is writing a second book about his trial.
Public opinion during the case largely sided with Costino, whose patients came to his defense during the trial in letters to the editor and a 2008 rally outside his office.
Haas said neighbors and friends have been supportive. They still see their former patients every day in town. And they always ask the same question, she said.
“When are you going to reopen your office?” she said. “If we opened the door tomorrow, there would be a crowd.”
