Federal hepatitis C-linked trial for Desai delayed again
The much-delayed federal health care trial of Dr. Dipak Desai stemming from the hepatitis C outbreak has been put off again.
Senior U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks issued an order late Wednesday postponing the trial until January to allow lead defense lawyer Richard Wright time to discuss a plea deal with Desai. The trial was to start Oct. 21.
“The rough parameters of a plea are in place, but counsel needs an opportunity to confer with the client,” Wright and Assistant U.S. Attorney Crane Pomerantz told Hicks in joint court papers.
The lawyers said a court-ordered mental evaluation of Desai is complete, but they did not disclose the results. Desai was taken out of state custody and examined at a federal facility in Los Angeles.
A jury convicted Desai in July 2013 of all 27 criminal counts related to the 2007 outbreak, including second-degree murder in the death of infected patient Rodolfo Meana, 77.
District Judge Valerie Adair later sentenced Desai to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 18 years.
Both Desai and his former clinic manager, Tonya Rushing, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 2011 on one count of conspiracy and 25 counts of health care fraud.
The case has been delayed a half-dozen times, primarily because federal prosecutors agreed to allow the state case to proceed first.
Rushing, who testified against Desai at the state trial, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in July and is to be sentenced Oct. 23.
Desai and Rushing were accused of carrying out a scheme from January 2005 to February 2008 to inflate the length of medical procedures and overbill health insurance companies.
The state charges, which included criminal neglect of patients and insurance fraud, involved the hepatitis C infections of Meana and six other patients at Desai’s now-closed endoscopy center.
Health officials genetically linked the blood-borne virus in those patients to the clinic.
Prosecutors contended unsafe injection practices involving the anesthetic propofol led to the outbreak.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.
