Family laments that Hempfield doctor avoided jail for their daughter's fatal overdose

Don Howard pulled no punches Monday in a Westmoreland County courtroom as he called for his daughter’s former doctor to be sent to jail.

“He’s nothing but a pill pusher, and I guess he doesn’t mean his Hippocratic oath,” Howard said during a hearing in which Dr. Edgar Peske, 81, of Hempfield pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter for overprescribing methadone to a patient.

Nicole Henderson, 30, of Unity died in 2015 from an overdose after prosecutors said Peske wrote her a prescription for 100 methadone pills. Her parents in court Monday denied Henderson caused her own death, as had previously been suggested by Peske’s lawyers, and said her overdose was the result of Peske’s failed care.

Henderson’s mother, Terry Howard, said the family has struggled with her death and that she and her husband have since adopted their daughter’s now 13-year-old son.

“I don’t really understand how Dr. Peske didn’t stop doing what he was doing. I pray this will open Dr. Peske’s eyes to see how many lives he has ruined,” Terry Howard said in a letter read in court by Deputy Attorney General Jeff Baxter.

Peske was charged in 2017 with drug delivery resulting in death and two other offenses. Last year, he pleaded no contest to those counts. Just days before he was to be sentenced, Peske withdrew his plea and his trial was slated to begin next week.

Prosecutors on Monday agreed to reduce the most serious charge against Peske to a misdemeanor offense of involuntary manslaughter and recommended the sentenced imposed by Common Pleas Court Judge Tim Krieger — five years on probation, including two years of house arrest. Additional charges of insurance fraud and a drug offense were dismissed.

Howard said he agreed with the decision to downgrade Peske’s crime but, in court, openly opposed the sentence.

“He gets to live his life out at home. Send his old —- to jail,” Howard said. “I hope you rot in jail, and I wish it was up to me. This guy is still alive and my daughter will be dead forever.”

Prosecutors said Peske served as Henderson’s doctor for years and routinely prescribed her painkillers and other medication, including the doses he authorized her to take two weeks before her death. According to court records, Henderson’s pharmacy initially refused to fill her prescription but eventually did so a day before her overdose after Peske reissued it for the purposes of pain management.

In previous court filings, investigators said Henderson was one of nine patients who were prescribed more than 104,000 pills by Peske over the previous 22 months. One patient, according to court records, was prescribed 30 pills a day of the pain killer oxycodone.

Peske said he agreed to plead guilty in connection to Henderson’s death as a means to end the case.

“I’d rather do this than go through the hassle of a trial. I feel this is a reasonable agreement to come to end five years of misery for my family and that of Nicole Henderson,” Peske told the judge.

Defense attorney Brian Aston said Peske never intended to harm Henderson.

“He had treated her for eight to 10 years, and he got to know her and he feels terrible about the situation. But, because the emotions were so charged in the courtroom, it was not the appropriate time to express any of that, and it was just a matter that we needed to get through this as quickly as possible so everyone can move on from here,” Aston said.

He suggested Monday’s guilty plea was impacted by a court petition he filed last week seeking details about the state attorney general’s office pending lawsuit against drug makers claiming they misrepresented to doctors the addictive nature of opioids.