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Former North Platte Dr. Michael Koning was sentenced Friday to five years of probation for tax evasion and ordered to work in the tropical Pacific island of Saipan.
Koning and a string of other North Platte medical professionals were sentenced to probation, restitution and fines, the culmination of a seven-year Internal Revenue Service investigation.
They all pleaded guilty to federal income tax evasion.
Koning, an anesthesiologist, was the most heavily involved doctor in the scheme.
He is currently living in Saipan and working at the islands hospital, where he earns $200,000 a year under a two-year contract, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf said during sentencing.
Kopf also fined Koning $60,000 and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service during his five-year probation.
If Koning has to leave Saipan during probation, the court will send him to a similar place, perhaps an Indian reservation, Kopf said.
After the sentence was set, Kopf said he doesnt like to lecture people at sentences, but then he said the doctors involved were beyond belief.
There is an entitlement mentality in the medical profession that is just astounding, Kopf said.
"I understand that doctors are trained not to doubt themselves because when they give critical care they cant doubt themselves; they have to act. But that breeds a sort of egotism that is really hard to take," he said.
The medical schools would be good to teach that what they (students)are taught to do as physicians may not be how they can live their lives outside the doctors suite or the surgical suite; that there are differences," Kopf said.
"And, if the government has done nothing else in this case, its made that point abundantly clear to a bunch of doctors who were piggish beyond belief," he said.
More here:
http://www.northplattebulletin.com/i...22288&pageID=3
Koning and a string of other North Platte medical professionals were sentenced to probation, restitution and fines, the culmination of a seven-year Internal Revenue Service investigation.
They all pleaded guilty to federal income tax evasion.
Koning, an anesthesiologist, was the most heavily involved doctor in the scheme.
He is currently living in Saipan and working at the islands hospital, where he earns $200,000 a year under a two-year contract, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf said during sentencing.
Kopf also fined Koning $60,000 and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service during his five-year probation.
If Koning has to leave Saipan during probation, the court will send him to a similar place, perhaps an Indian reservation, Kopf said.
After the sentence was set, Kopf said he doesnt like to lecture people at sentences, but then he said the doctors involved were beyond belief.
There is an entitlement mentality in the medical profession that is just astounding, Kopf said.
"I understand that doctors are trained not to doubt themselves because when they give critical care they cant doubt themselves; they have to act. But that breeds a sort of egotism that is really hard to take," he said.
The medical schools would be good to teach that what they (students)are taught to do as physicians may not be how they can live their lives outside the doctors suite or the surgical suite; that there are differences," Kopf said.
"And, if the government has done nothing else in this case, its made that point abundantly clear to a bunch of doctors who were piggish beyond belief," he said.
More here:
http://www.northplattebulletin.com/i...22288&pageID=3
