Dr. Diana Williamson, 56, has a novel defense to Medicaid fraud: she says the crime was actually committed by Nala, her alternative personality. The ultimate Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde defense. She claims that the disorder developed as a result of sexual abuse as a child by a Massachusetts priest. Supporting their claim is a diagnosis some 25 years ago.
Nala is described by Williamson’s lawyer as “mischievous, irresponsible, reckless and, as we have just discovered, criminal.” In a letter to the court, Williamson claimed that Nala “committed these crimes without telling Diana or the other parts of me about them.”
It is not clear if Williamson only charged as Diana the doctor as opposed to the lower rate of Nala the psychotic thief.
The disorder is not being claimed to prove innocence but to mitigate the sentence. The difficulty may lie in the crime which occurred over a long period of time and took detailed work and planning. Williamson allegedly wrote fake prescriptions for oxycodone to be purchased through Medicaid and then resold on the streets. She is accused of defrauding Medicaid out of about $300,000 as part of roughly a $1 million conspiracy. Over 11,000 painkiller pills were bought with Medicaid benefits and sold for $20 to $40 per pill.
The judge seemed skeptical of the multiple personality argument. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska stated in the hearing that “I guess I’m having trouble understanding that with the defendant’s remarkable medical career, having founded an AIDS hospital … it doesn’t seem to have impaired her ability to function as a medical professional.”
She is also claiming to have medical conditions that make imprisonment too risky including pulmonary hypertension and life-threatening allergic asthma.
Notably, Williamson was heralded for her work on AIDS in Harlem and practiced medicine for decades during the same period when she was acting as two different people. In this case, Dr. Jekyll is throwing Mr. Hyde under the bus. The question is whether the court could simply agree and order Mr. Hyde or Nala imprisoned for the 11 years demanded by the government.
Source: Washington Post as first seen on ABA Journal
Chi,
My corrected vision is better than 20/20.
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The disorder is not being claimed to prove innocence but to mitigate the sentence. The difficulty may lie in the crime which occurred over a long period of time and took detailed work and planning. Williamson allegedly wrote fake prescriptions for oxycodone to be purchased through Medicaid and then resold on the streets. She is accused of defrauding Medicaid out of about $300,000 as part of roughly a $1 million conspiracy. Over 11,000 painkiller pills were bought with Medicaid benefits and sold for $20 to $40 per pill.
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Keep firing the government auditors who actually want to do the job properly. That’s right, it’s politics. Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about it? Manager always knows best?
This went on for a long period of time. Why? The accounting and legal system is broken. Private sector and government both.
Could be……some people are capable of dual personalities……sometimes more…..
Tragic and pathetic. Multiple Personality Disorder or DID is a therapist induced artefact strongly affected by current cultural mores. What makes it worse is that there are still psychiatrists and psychologists who are prepared to buy into this. If there was ever a pure case of malingering, this is it.
junctionshamus,
I love that you’ve closed the avatar gap. You’ll be walking in no time.
Oh Darren, now you made me do it…
http://youtu.be/m-wErh2qp2o
It’s all a matter of convenience for the defendant.
I’ll bet if someone introducted to her that consumption of Vegameatavatamin in the late 1950’s led to people unknowingly committing crimes and were held not to be legally responsible, she would claim her fraud was induced by this.
If Nala was doing it, why didn’t Diana turn her in or tie her up … is Nala lots bigger than Diana or something like that?
Kudos to her lawyer for trying to defend the client using all possible material at hand, however, the claim seems improbable.
Medicaid fraud… she’s a f@cking drug dealer. Try her on that and let her be subjected to those sentencing guidelines.
Todd Akin has already explained why doctors do these things:
(House Speech, Todd Akin). Imagine how bad it would get with two docs inside one skin.
Wowzer Todd, you nailed it!
roses are red
violets are blue
I have multiple personalities
and so do I
She should have become a banker if she wanted to get all fraudy and rogue, because banksters can get all mavericky without consequences (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money). Too big to jail is the thingy.
“Dr. Diana Williamson, 56, has a novel defense to Medicaid fraud: she says the crime was actually committed by Nala, her alternative personality.”
Diana will have to stay in the same cell as Nala.
Also, dissociative fugue disorder (her diagnosis according to the source material) is not the equivalent of the far rarer dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personality disorder). Those with dissociative fugues may adopt alternate identities but the personalities share information, unlike true MPD where the identities are truly segregated. I know this because I know someone with dissociative fugue disorder.
medicare/medicaid fraud is a big problem.
I know I have a can of Bullshit Repellent around here somewhere . . .