Judge denies Kennebunk doctor’s attempt to toss evidence in opioid-overprescribing case

KENEBUNK, Maine — A federal judge rejected a local doctor's request to throw out key evidence in a case alleging she overprescribed opioids, setting the stage for a trial next month.

Dr. Merideth Norris of Kennebunk is accused of 17 counts of prescribing controlled substances without any legitimate medical purpose. The counts cover a period from Oct. 21, 2021, through July 18, 2022, and include such substances as methadone, oxycodone, fentanyl and others.

In a motion filed on her behalf, attorneys Timothy Zerillo, Amy Fairfield and Karen Wolfram argued evidence against Norris should be thrown out because it was obtained through search warrants that included false statements and omissions of details. If included, Norris' attorneys argued, it would have undermined probable cause.

Norris, who operates Graceful Recovery, an addiction treatment center in Kennebunk, was arrested in October 2022. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Jury selection is expected to begin during the first week of June, according to court records. Norris could face years in prison and hefty fines, if convicted.

Back in September, Norris' attorneys filed motions to suppress evidence that FBI task force agents seized from two local practices during the executions of search warrants in 2022. Patient records were among the materials Norris had hoped would be thrown out of the case.

In her April 26 decision, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torreson agreed with the defense the affidavit submitted by Special Agent Dale Wengler was “reckless” in its omissions, but she concluded Wengler had not intended to mislead judicial officials in making them.

Defense: Special agent left out key details in search warrants

Norris' attorneys had contended that Wengler’s affidavit failed to include key details of an investigation by the State of Maine Board of Osteopathic Licensure that coincided with the one the federal government was pursuing against her.

In 2022, the state board received and investigated a complaint from Walmart alleging Norris was overprescribing opioids to some of her patients. Walmart had conducted its own investigation into prescriptions by Norris when it started noticing what it considered to be questionable patterns emerging among customers at the superstore’s pharmacies.

After an investigation, which included a public hearing, the board informed Norris the complaint was unanimously dismissed. In a letter, the board thanked Norris for her “thorough and compassionate care” of her patients, according to court documents.

In their motion, defense attorneys noted the affidavits referred to the complaint to build its case for obtaining search warrants but failed to mention the state board’s dismissal of it. The attorneys also argued that the affidavits made false and misleading statements about patients of Norris.

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Judge rejects defense pleas to throw out evidence

In her denial, the judge stated Wengler had “credibly testified” during a hearing he was not aware the state board had dismissed the complaint when he signed and submitted the affidavit in pursuit of the search warrants.

The judge also said the affidavit provided enough information beyond the details of the state board’s investigation to justify granting the search warrants. Torresen referred to other investigations, including the Walmart one, and professional opinions that pointed to the possibility that not all of Norris’s prescriptions were necessary.

The judge ruled Norris and her attorneys had not proven that probable cause for the warrants would have been upended had Wengler’s affidavits included the results of the state board’s efforts to look into the complaint.

“I find that the affidavit still establishes that there is a fair probability that Dr. Norris was distributing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice without legitimate medical need,” Torresen wrote.

The judge also denied a motion to suppress patient records in the case.

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Case was first for New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force

According to the 2022 affidavit, the case against Norris began to take shape when Walmart stopped filling out the prescriptions she made for her patients.

In the affidavit, Special Agent Dale Wengler cited Medicare statistics showing Norris with the highest rate of prescribing opioids per patient in the state of Maine. Nationally, Norris was in the 99th percentile when it came to the amounts of daily doses of opioids she prescribed for patients.

“The Medicare data indicates that Norris is in the 95th percentile for a number of outlier behaviors that are indicative of illegal prescribing,” Wengler wrote.

According to the agent, 22 of Norris’ patients died between January 2018 and June 2022. The patients all were covered by Medicaid and had an average age of 49. During the same time frame, nine more of Norris’ patients died. These individuals were covered by Medicare and averaged 68 years old, according to the affidavit.

Wengler said his investigation team had received incident reports and medical examiner reports for at least seven of Norris’s patients whose primary cause of death was an overdose.

The affidavit said data revealed Norris prescribed controlled substances to multiple patients who died of overdoses within 45 days of receiving prescriptions from her. The investigation focused on oxycodone, methadone, hydromorphone, diazepam, clonazepam and dextroamphetamine prescribed to three patients, according to court records.

Norris’ arrest made history in law enforcement’s efforts to combat the opioid crisis, as it was the first one made by the New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force. The strike force was launched in the summer of 2022 to combat the illegal prescribing of drugs during the opioid epidemic in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Judge rejects motion to toss evidence in opioid-overprescribing case