Richard V. Paey
Richard V. Paey was sentenced on April 16, 2004 to a mandatory minimum sentance of 25 years and fined $500,000. Paey, in his wheelchair with a morphine pump sewn into his ruined back, will live out-what for him is a death sentence-in a Florida prison for possessing the medicine that he requires to survive.
Judge David D. Diskey heard the Paey wife�s pleas for mercy, but could not exercise judicial discretion because of a mandatory minimum of 25 years in a Florida prison.
�This is the problem for the Florida state legislature and the governor,� Judge Diskey said.
CONTACT LOCAL LAWMAKERS
Let the following people know that you�re outraged by the treatment received by Richard at the hands of an abusive criminal justice system, and that you want Richard Paey freed from jail.
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Sen. Mike Fasano
Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
8217 Massachusetts Ave.
New Port Richey, FL 34653-3111
(727) 848-5885
[email protected]
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Gov. Jeb Bush
The Capital
Tallahassee, FL 32399
(850) 488-7146
(850) 487-0801(fax)
[email protected]
SAMPLE LETTER
Writing in regard:
Richard Paey
DC # 29228
Zephyrhills Correctional Institution
2739 Gall Blvd.
Zephyrhills, Florida 33541
Dear _______;
Nothing is more shocking than the outcome of Richard Paey's trial. On April 16, 2004, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and fined $500,000, for doing nothing more than managing back pain caused by an automobile accident and two failed surgeries. This even after prosecutors admitting Paey was not a drug trafficker.
The decision by the State of Florida, leaves one wondering what freedoms are left in America, when a man already suffering in pain, receives this kind of justice. Please reconsider this decision and FREE RICHARD PAEY.
Thank you,
Your name
Address
City/State
Pill Sham
A man seeking pain relief gets 25 years for drug trafficking
By Jacob Sullum
http://www.reason.com/sullum/042304.shtml
Here's a bit of legal information that may interest Rush Limbaugh:
Under Florida law, illegally obtaining more than 28 grams of
painkillers containing the narcotic oxycodone�a threshold
exceeded by a single 60-pill Percocet prescription�automatically
makes you the worst sort of drug trafficker, even if you never sold a
single pill. Even if, like Richard Paey, you were using the drugs to
relieve severe chronic pain.
Although prosecutors admitted Paey was not a drug trafficker, on
April 16 he received a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years for
drug trafficking. That jaw-dropping outcome illustrates two sadly
familiar side effects of the war on drugs: the injustice caused by
mandatory minimum sentences and the suffering caused by the
government's interference with pain treatment.
Paey, a 45-year-old father of three, is disabled as a result of a
1985 car accident, failed back surgery, and multiple sclerosis.
Today, as he sits in jail in his wheelchair, a subdermal pump
delivers a steady, programmed dose of morphine to his spine. But for
years he treated his pain with Percocet, Lortab (a painkiller
containing the narcotic hydrocodone), and Valium prescribed by his
doctor in New Jersey, Steven Nurkiewicz.
When Paey and his family moved to Florida in 1994, he had trouble
finding a new doctor. Because he had developed tolerance to the pain
medication, he needed high doses, and because he was not on the verge
of death, he needed them indefinitely. As many people who suffer from
chronic pain can testify, both of those factors make doctors nervous,
since they know the government is looking over their shoulders while
they write prescriptions.
Unable to find a local physician who was comfortable taking him on as
a patient, Paey used undated prescription forms from Nurkiewicz's
office to obtain painkillers in Florida. Paey says Nurkiewicz
authorized these prescriptions, which the doctor (who could face
legal trouble of his own) denies.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office began investigating Paey in late
1996 after receiving calls from suspicious pharmacists. Detectives
tracked Paey as he filled prescriptions for 1,200 pills from January
1997 until his arrest that March.
At first investigators assumed Paey must be selling the pills, since
they thought the amounts were too large for him to consume on his
own. But the police never found any evidence of that, and two years
after his arrest prosecutors offered him a deal: If he pleaded guilty
to attempted trafficking, he would receive eight years of probation,
including three years of house arrest.
Paey initially agreed but then had second thoughts. His wife, Linda,
says he worried that he could go to prison if he was accused of
violating his probation. More fundamentally, he did not want to
identify himself as a criminal when he believed he had done nothing
wrong. He has since turned down other plea deals involving prison
time.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have pursued Paey in three trials. The first
ended in a mistrial; the second resulted in a conviction that the
judge threw out because of a procedural error; and the third, which
ended last month, produced guilty verdicts on 15 charges of drug
trafficking, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, and
possession of a controlled substance.
A juror later told the St. Petersburg Times he did not really think
Paey was guilty of trafficking, since the prosecution made it clear
from the outset that he didn't sell any pills. The juror said he
voted guilty to avoid being the lone holdout. He suggested that other
jurors might have voted differently if the foreman had not assured
them Paey would get probation.
The prosecutors, who finally obtained the draconian sentence that
even they concede Paey does not deserve, say it's his fault for
insisting on his innocence. "It's unfortunate that anyone has to go
to prison, but he's got no one to blame but Richard Paey," Assistant
State Attorney Mike Halkitis told the St. Petersburg Times. "All we
wanted to do was get him help."
Paey's real crime, it seems, is not drug trafficking but
ingratitude. "My husband was so adamant, and so strongly defending
this from the very beginning, that it might have annoyed them," says
Linda Paey. "They were extremely upset that he would not accept a
plea bargain. They felt that anyone who had any common sense
would....But he didn't want to say he was guilty of something he
didn't do."
