Popular KC doctor gets prison time for $1.5 million in prescription drug fraud

A popular Kansas City doctor was sentenced to a year in federal prison at an emotional hearing Thursday for his role in prescription drug fraud.

John Verstraete and employees at his office at 3215 Main St. had pleaded guilty to writing unnecessary prescriptions for human growth hormone and importing illegal steroids from overseas and then selling them on the black market.

Verstraete’s attorney, Christopher Angles, asked that Verstraete get only probation and home confinement, citing his history of compassionate patient care and charity work.

Dozens of Verstraete’s supporters — many of them patients — were in the gallery when U.S. District Court Judge Gary Fenner instead laid down a 12-month prison sentence.

A woman in the front row blurted out, “No.” A bailiff immediately positioned himself in front of her, and Fenner warned the gallery that another outburst would result in removal.

After the hearing the woman, Trisha Lintz of Independence, said she had seen Verstraete for years for a range of ailments.

“They took him away,” she said. “They’re putting him in jail. I think it could have been handled without them doing that. It’s bad enough they’re going to take his (medical) license.”

Prosecutors had argued that Verstraete should be sentenced within federal guidelines, which called for 46 to 57 months in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sirena Wissler said that Verstraete wrote fraudulent human growth hormone prescriptions to people who used it “strictly for vanity purposes,” cheating Medicare and Medicaid out of about $1.5 million. He or others in his office then bought some of the drugs back to be sold to other patients.

Human growth hormone, or HGH, is approved only for some genetic conditions and for symptoms of HIV/AIDS, but weightlifters, bodybuilders and athletes sometimes use it illicitly in combination with steroids to gain a competitive edge.

Wissler said Verstraete also got steroids from “completely illicit sources that have no controls whatsoever,” she said, and when the government seized and tested some of them, most turned out to be adulterated or outright fakes.

Wissler said although the scheme may have been instigated or led by others in his office, Verstraete’s medical license and prescribing power made it possible.

“Dr. Verstraete is in the unique position of having driven this entire course of conduct,” Wissler said. “He is the essential component of this entire conspiracy, without whom it couldn’t have existed or continued.”

Angles presented the court with a number of witnesses who testified in writing and in person to Verstraete’s character.

Valerie Sims of Kansas City said Verstraete sometimes dipped into his own pocket to help her buy medications she couldn’t afford.

Timothy Grimm, who uses a motorized wheelchair, came to Kansas City for the hearing from Richmond, Mo., a medically under-served area where Verstraete traveled twice a month to see patients.

“It’s a great service he provides for my community,” Grimm said. “I know a lot of people are going to cry. We’ll have to drive to Liberty or North Kansas City.”

Chynwe Ahumaraeze, a pastor and psychiatric nurse from Nigeria, said Verstraete donated his time and money to medical missions in Africa and sometimes gave Ahumaraeze medications to take back there with him.

But Wissler said that raised more questions about where Verstraete got those drugs.

“I found it fascinating that one of his own witnesses testified about a bag of medications in his office,” Wissler said.

Though several of Verstraete’s supporters said they could not believe he was involved in any wrongdoing, Verstraete told the court he had violated his Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm” and violated the trust the public places in licensed physicians.

As a result, he said he’s watched his career disintegrate, losing his ability to prescribe controlled substances, his hospital privileges, his board certification and soon, probably, his medical license.

“The worst of it is I’ve lost the respect of my colleagues, my employees, my patients and my family,” Verstraete said. “I may have helped some people, but the way I allowed it to happen is nothing but shameful.”

In addition to his prison term, Verstraete will have to pay back the $1.5 million. Angles said Verstraete has already begun doing that, using proceeds from a settlement related to the 2013 explosion at J.J.’s Restaurant on the Country Club Plaza. Verstraete operated a medical spa nearby that was damaged in the explosion.

Fenner said Verstraete is “obviously not an evil person” and said Thursday’s sentencing was a “sad day and a sad set of circumstances.”

“Nobody can take away from you the support you have here today, but you’ve got to pay a price for what you did,” Fenner said. “You can’t have doctors prescribing medications to people when it’s not medically necessary.”