It was Desai’s fault: Ex-physician guilty of murder, 25 other counts

It was Dipak Desai’s fault. It was always his fault.

A Clark County jury confirmed as much Monday, six years after Desai’s disgusting injection and endoscopy practices infected several local patients with hepatitis C, triggering the largest patient notification effort in American history and one of the most complicated investigations and prosecutions ever undertaken by Las Vegas police and the Clark County district attorney’s office.

Desai was a corner-cutting cheapskate of a doctor who willfully put his patients’ health and lives at risk to make a few extra bucks. One of his patients, Rodolfo Meana, died last year as a result of Desai’s malpractice. Desai was found guilty of second-degree murder in connection with the death. He was also found guilty of 25 other neglect- and fraud-related counts. One of his nurse anesthetists, Ronald Lakeman, was found guilty of 16 counts Monday, but not guilty of 11 counts, including Mr. Meana’s murder.

Everyone saw the convictions coming. Desai never had a defense. The mountain of evidence against him, brilliantly built and presented by law enforcement, could not be countered. Desai’s attorney, Richard Wright, could only delay the proceedings against his client, now 63 years old, to keep him out of prison as long as possible. Because the murder conviction alone carries a potential sentence of 10 years to life, Desai probably will spend the rest of his days locked up.

This entire calamity was Desai’s fault.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wright’s success in delaying criminal proceedings against Desai created a perfect window of opportunity for plaintiffs attorneys to blame others for the health care crisis. Civil trials against the manufacturer of the propofol used in Desai’s colonoscopies and a health insurer who covered some of his patients resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in awards from jurors who were prevented from hearing evidence about Desai’s practices. District Judges Jessie Walsh and Timothy C. Williams made so many favorable decisions in favor of the plaintiffs, it’s surprising they didn’t offer their robes and benches to counsel.

Now there can be no doubt. The trial bar’s shakedown of every entity that did business with Desai surely will continue, but his conviction makes it clear. The spread of hepatitis, a horrible, incurable disease, was Dipak Desai’s fault.

It was always his fault.