Too much evidence gets drug charges against doctor dropped

Too much evidence gets drug charges against doctor dropped

www.foxnews.com

IOWA CITY, Iowa – A fugitive doctor charged in the nation's largest prosecution of Internet pharmacies is getting off in part because there's just too much evidence: more than 400,000 documents and two terabytes of electronic data that federal authorities say is expensive to maintain.
Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 in a multimillion dollar scheme that involved selling prescription drugs to patients who were never examined or even interviewed by a physician.

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Wow. I have to tell you, I have about 15 Terabytes here of data stored at my house, and I spend about $3.00 a month in electricity.

Now, I know that $3.00 is a lot of money to a lot of people, and I am sorry for being a spendthrift.

I understand the US Government is trying to cut costs and all of that, so I can appreciate that this guy put hundreds of thousands of pills out on the black market.

And, I am sure that not one of those pills caused anyone to die, or to kill, or to commit crimes.

But heck, if there are any DEA agents reading this, you can store the stuff here on my server, and, you can store the papers in my bedroom closet...its a walk in, so if we move my wife's shoes around, we can make it fit...

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by phantomjack


Seriously--you really have to wonder what exactly their "maintenance" consists of. What are they doing that's so different, that the rest of us don't do? This sounds like some stupid excuse to obscure the real reason. Of course we can only speculate on what that real reason might be....

The Miami doctor fled to his native Panama after coming under investigation in 2004, and Panamanian authorities say they do not extradite their own citizens. Given the unlikelihood of capturing Angulo and the inconvenience of maintaining so much evidence, prosecutors gave up the long pursuit.

Well, also there was no chance in hell panama was going to give him up.

So unless hes stupid and left the protection of panama we would never of gotten him to begin with.

I don't agree with throwing it out, surely they could of picked enough key evidence to hold for enough charges to deal with him in case he was stupid enough to leave.

The excuse being offered is a nonsense.
I suspect its more to do with what MIGHT have come to light concerning certain drugs had the case continued.

400,000+ documents would be a massive storage problem if they all have to be on paper - I'm not sure what the rules are there, but in many places scanned documents are not legally admissable - only the originals.

that said this article says that 2 Tb is 5% of the DEA's worldwide electronic storage!!!!!!...which is pretty pathetic - 2Tb external HD's aren't expensive!!!!!!

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Yeah really, how janky is the DEA when some computer geek living in his parents basement could very possibly have MORE storage capacity than a huge governmental agency for the richest country in the world? It's laughable.

Hell, the DEA could sell just a few of their weapons and double their storage capacity. This isn't rocket science.

Originally posted by benrl


I don't agree with throwing it out, surely they could of picked enough key evidence to hold for enough charges to deal with him in case he was stupid enough to leave.

I don't believe they are allowed to do this. That would basically be destroying evidence. While the state may only need certain key pieces of evidence to successfully convict this man, ALL of the evidence they have gathered still has to be kept intact.

Why? Because if this man ever does go to trial, he can claim that they destroyed a key piece of evidence that proved his innocence. The evidence collected by the state can be used by the defense just like it can be used by the prosecution. Because of this, getting rid of any of the evidence could cause the case to be thrown out.

Say there was a murder case, john blob was the defendant. The state collects a bunch of evidence against him, and in this evidence is a video tape of someone else admitting to the murder. If the state just got rid of all the evidence THEY didn't need to convict john blob, then they would be destroying the video tape that proves john blob's innocence.

Which is why they are probably just throwing up their hands and giving up, because for some very odd reason the DEA doesn't have a big enough budget to drive to best buy and pick up a few terabyte external hard drives.

Originally posted by VoidHawk
The excuse being offered is a nonsense.
I suspect its more to do with what MIGHT have come to light concerning certain drugs had the case continued.

Oh this is probably the truth. This was most likely done to conceal what the public has a right to know about big pharma.

OP left out some information. It wasn't just dropped because of too much evidence.

The Miami doctor fled to his native Panama after coming under investigation in 2004, and Panamanian authorities say they do not extradite their own citizens. Given the unlikelihood of capturing Angulo and the inconvenience of maintaining so much evidence, prosecutors gave up the long pursuit.

you only need about 100 files to make the court case.
what do they normaly do? site each one by its self?
I have not see that done before?
this smells like a con job.

reply to post by buddha


the number required will vary with the court case - and as has been pointed out above, you have to keep track of all the other evidence you have found even if you do nto use it.

Originally posted by buddha
you only need about 100 files to make the court case.
what do they normaly do? site each one by its self?
I have not see that done before?
this smells like a con job.

Like I said in my previous post, you cannot just get rid of all the evidence that you don't need for your case. That's called destroying evidence. Every single piece of evidence gathered by the state has to remain intact, because there is a possibility that something in there could prove the defendant is innocent. Or at least, the defense could claim there was something in there that proved their innocence, and the state destroyed said evidence, it would be a mistrial and the defendant goes free.

He fled the country and it isn't likely they will ever prosecute, that is why they don't want to continue the storage. It is true that they only need a handful of patients and records to prove their case, so they never should have seized all that data in the first place. Since these are health records, they have to be compliant with HIPPA regulations, and they have to provide access to the records for the patients and subsequent treating doctors. It is a huge undertaking to seize and maintain this many records while also ensuring chain of custody, viability of the evidence, availability of the records, and confidentiality.

This was a rookie mistake by the investigators. They should never have taken possession of all that data. They should have searched on-site, taken a couple of dozen of the most promising files, and left the doctor to deal with the rest. They could always go back and seize more at a later time, but if they take it up front, then they have to document every page, every time it moves, every time it is reviewed or opened or copied, etc.

It's likely they've already made enough errors that the evidence will get thrown out anyway, and the guy is out of the country, and he's no longer doing business in the US, so their work is pretty much finished.