Dr. Benjamin Moore 'May you rest in peace...'
Dr. Moore committed suicide on July 23, 2002, as a direct result of the South Carolina Clinic case. He became entangled in the vast web that is our legal system and was helpless against the power, resources, and cunning of predatory government agents. Ben started out with a vigorous defense, but repeated DEA "debriefings" wore him down. If the DEA agents were sincere, then he had been delusional the whole time he thought he was working hard and helping people, and he had been delusional his whole life in thinking doctors were the good guys. Could the agents be prostituting themselves and justice for merely an increase in pay grade? These are the people who called Ben's paycheck "money laundering." How could they live with themselves? How could the American government allow these people to continue destroying everything they touch? How could this happen in America, and how could it happen to him?
Ben was tired. His situation was hopeless, with his career ruined beyond repair and facing prison for crimes he never committed. He actually hoped he was delusional so he could come to his senses and the world would be right again. Every waking hour, the thought came to mind, "My life is over."
Dr. Benjamin Moore defied the United States Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration. He refused to allow himself to be used to hurt anyone else. He knew he had never been delusional, he was good and they were bad. He was right and they were wrong. He was clean and they were dirty. He stood alone and they were legion. On July 23, 2002, Benjamin Moore stopped wishing and stopped regretting.
Ben couldn't save the world, and at that moment in time, nobody in the world could have saved Ben. His life really was ruined. He did not want to hurt his family, and honestly thought they would ultimately suffer less with his death than with his continued living. His life was that miserable and his pain was that great. His suicide was an act of logic for a man who felt he had lost control of his life, for he exercised the ultimate control. He would have liked to warn the world, but everybody was busy. The world appeared indifferent to truth, as it always does until truth becomes reality. Ben knew no one was coming to help him, but everyone wished him well.
Dr. Benjamin Rutledge Moore
11/23/1957 � 7/23/2002
A Casualty of War.
Physicians are highly educated, highly trained professionals. Their work demands verbal acuity and specificity. Most are not trained, talented, or practiced in the art of deception.
Against the tactics of corrupt Government employees, the doctors do not stand a chance. The DEA exists to prosecute doctors. That is reality. That is their war.
Dr Benjamin Moore - "Death Offers Peace":
Letter from Dr. Benjamin Moore concerning the clinic and the rationale for pleading guilty:
No one has to spend time convincing me that Dr. ____ was a drug dealer with a medical license. I know that. I suspected for a long time, and I have plenty of witnesses both in the clinic and doctors around town that I confided in. But I wasn't sure of it until the day he said "no more urine drug screens". That day I told everyone in the clinic including the doctors what I thought.
After that, rather than leaving, I proceeded to undo everything he had done, and he couldn't stop me. I was subtle and effective. I began doing urine drug screens and OxyContin levels on a regular basis. I began terminating suspected drug addicts at a rate of 1000% over my previous rate. These are readily provable by looking at the data I've compiled from the charts themselves.
Was the clinic was a complete fraud? Well from the standpoint that he was a legitimate pain doc, yes. Were the rest of the docs fraudulent? Not a one of them that I knew was there to make a buck off selling drugs. Only _____ was and only in a very clandestine way. As a matter of fact there were a majority of patients that were legitimate. Not that ____ would have cared anyway. It's only the bad ones that get the attention and the headlines.
Was there Medicare/Medicaid fraud? I don't know. I didn't have anything to do with billing. Were ____'s exams fraudulent? Perhaps. How about the rest of the doctor's? I didn't look in the eyes and mouth 100% of the time. If that makes the rest of the exam a fraud then yes. However, the truth is that I did an extensive targeted neurological exam on every patient, every time, witnessed by a chaperone. That exam far exceeds listening to the heart and lungs. My exams were tailored to the chief complaints of herniated discs and the like. I was not the family doc. I wasn't there to treat colds and blisters. I was there to treat intractable pain and try to ascertain the underlying etiology.
Do I understand my attorney's stategy? Yes, I believe I do. I know that the prosecution couldn't care less if I rot in jail the rest of my life. As a matter of fact they might prefer it. But they might be willing to negotiate if I can give them what they want. So, since I'm being extorted by the "legal" system, basically blackmailed, I will admit guilt. But what do I admit guilt to?
Medicare/Medicaid fraud? If I'm guilty of it, yes. But no one has shown me that I am. Prescribing drugs illegitimately? Only by mistake, not intentionally. But I would concede that if I had to. Theoretically if the penalty were a mandatory death sentence, then I would rather go to trial. I'm not as afraid of death as I am loss of freedom. Death offers freedom, rest, and hopefully peace. I'd rather live free or die. It's not an uncommon feeling among people. Why do you think we fight wars? But to be incarcerated for life? No, I'd rather say anything they want me to, than to face that. That is a fate that should only be reserved for the worst of the worst.
Am I the worst of the worst? Al Capone got 10 years. They're saying I'm worse than Al Capone?
Do I think the prosecutors have honor? Just about as much as______. They seem just as unconcerned about right and wrong as he does. They seem to be two sides of the same coin. Both are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get what they want. And as I've said all along two wrongs don't make a right. I've said that since the police assaulted me in June 2000, and I'm saying it now.
If the government wants to end terrorism, it needs to look within its own ranks. That would be a good place to start. We as a nation are terrorizing doctors, and leaving people in pain with nowhere to turn but suicide. And that's precisely what happens to intractable pain patients. At 900% the rate of the general population.
Dr Benjamin Moore - The Suicide Discovered�:
Imagine what it was like�
The call came at 2:15 am, "Allen, this is your Mom. Benjamin has committed suicide."
"What!?"
"I couldn't find him�I was tired and went to sleep about 8:30�didn't know where he was. I woke up about 2:00 am, and went upstairs (to his bedroom) and he wasn't there. Then I went out into the front, and his truck was there.
So, I started looking around the yard�went to the back, towards the barn. Then I saw him, hanging from the walnut tree in the back. He was slumped down beside the trunk, with a rope around his neck. I knew he was dead. Even at night, with only the moonlight, I could see that his face was blue, and I knew he was dead."
She came back to the house, called 9-1-1, then called me.
As I was talking with her, the emergency services arrived and she said, "I've got to call you back."
For the next seven hours, until the pastor of our church and I arrived, she dealt with the situation on her own, remembering Benjamin the doctor, remembering Benjamin the son.
When I got a copy of the death investigation report, it simply said, "Death by strangulation - self inflicted."
Is there a message here? What was Benjamin trying to tell us?
A Different Kind of OxyContin Death
Benjamin Moore, MD R.I.P.
On July 24, 2002 Dr. Benjamin Moore committed suicide in Winston-Salem, NC. His death is attributable directly to the war on Oxycontin. Dr. Moore, a well-liked and respected locum tenans physician had gone to work at a pain management clinic in South Carolina that had come under investigation by the DEA. Pain management specialists who reviewed files at the request of Dr. Moore's counsel agreed that his medical practices bore no signs of criminal intent. Under intense pressure and "counseling" by the DEA, Dr. Moore pled guilty to counts involving prescription of Oxycontin and fraudulent billing and was awaiting sentencing by a South Carolina federal court at the time of his death.
I received this notice from Mary Baluss, our National Counsel. There is little I can say to comfort the family, friends and pateints of Dr. Moore. Had I known he was contemplating this, perhaps I could have helped. I would have shared with him my own experiences, which led me to help found the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain. I would have told him to fight to the death - that the Drug Warriors could kill him, but that they should never make him give up.
It is true that the Prosecutors have endless resources and doctors have only there own means - always earned just one day at a time.
It is true that to fight charges, like those Dr. Moore faced, can cost over $250,000.
It is also true that Dr. Robert Weitzel, facing his second trial, has already spent $650,000, $200,000 of which were from an anonymous benefactor.
It is true that Dr. Weitzel has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy and has nothing material left in the world (not even his medical license - that was suspended when all this began almost three years ago.)
It is true that Doctors Talley and Groves, and many others, are still undergoing persecution for attempting to treat intractable pain.
It is true that Dr. Joan Lewis in New Mexico spent $150,000 defending herself against the fanatical board there, and ended up settling the case by agreeing to an absurd order compelling her to obtain "more training" (when she already knew more about pain management than the entire board will if they live to be 100.)
It is true that most doctors in the United States would rather just abandon and avoid pain patients than risk these kind of experiences.
It is true that these abandoned patients kill themselves, drink themselves to death, take street drugs or withdraw to their beds, hopelessly despairing.
It is true that we live an age of reckless national folly, when it comes to the treatment of pain.
It is true that agents of the government's war on drugs, promised that they will have a lifetime employment, three weeeks vacation with pay, ongoing educational benefits, retirement plans and health insurance - all if only they can find evil - will continue to find evil in the brave care that some Ammerican doctors try to provide those in intractable pain.
Soon the playing field will be leveled. Soon every doctor will have the opportunity to insure themselves against this kind of one-sided bullying. Soon they will have the kind of depth of legal defense and expertise they need to beat back this vicious and conscienceable persecution.
Stay posted. The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain is leading the counterattack.
Perhaps, Dr. Moore, we will some day present an annual award memorialzing you, for the bravest doctor in Pain care in America. We wish you had been braver, and not let them hound you to an early death. But we salute you for what you were able to do - before the curtain fell on your hopes and dreams. God bless and God speed. May you rest in peace and may you always be remembered by those who loved you.
J.S.Hochman MD
Executive Director
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