Lawyers for a Hempfield doctor contend a state lawsuit against drug makers could bolster his defense against a murder charge he faces for allegedly overprescribing medication that led to a patient’s death.
Defense attorneys Brian Aston and Ken Noga said claims made in the lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office against Purdue Pharma and others counteract accusations against Dr. Edgar Peske, 81, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month in Westmoreland County.
State prosecutors contend Nicole Henderson, 30, of Unity died in June 2015 from an overdose of methadone prescribed by Peske.
The case includes allegations that Peske prescribed 100 methadone pills to Henderson for drug withdrawal symptoms two weeks before her death. Her pharmacy initially refused to fill the prescription but did so a day before she died after Peske reissued it and said the doses were for pain management, prosecutors have claimed.
Investigators said Henderson was one of nine patients 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 painkiller oxycodone.
Peske’s lawyers contend the case against the doctor is at odds with the attorney general’s allegations in a lawsuit filed last year against OxyContin maker Purdue, claiming the company misled doctors to cause them to overprescribe the drugs, according to defense attorneys.
“It is the petitioner’s position that the Office of the Attorney General is simultaneously claiming that the petitioner is liable for over prescribing OxyContin while maintaining that Purdue Pharma is responsible for distorting information regarding OxyContin and incentivizing doctors in Pennsylvania to over prescribe,” Aston and Noga wrote in court documents.
Peske’s attorneys said evidence gleaned in the lawsuit could discredit expert testimony against the doctor at his trial.
They want Common Pleas Court Judge Tim Krieger to order the attorney general’s office to turn over evidence discovered in the civil case against Purdue to Peske’s lawyers to use in his criminal trial. The defense also seeks to unseal the specific allegations raised in the lawsuit.
The attorney general’s office refused to comment on the case Tuesday.
Peske last year pleaded no contest to the charges but later withdrew that plea, claiming he did so to avoid a potential sentence of up to six years in prison.
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