Case on medical credentials to begin

The medical office on a tree-lined Tredyffrin Township street might have appeared commonplace, but prosecutors will try to persuade a Chester County Court jury that the man who ran it was a phony doctor who operated a narcotics mill.

The case against Richard A. Brown, scheduled to begin Tuesday, could cap a 31/2-year-old court battle on charges that Brown has vehemently denied.

The 67-year-old former medical practitioner, whose offices were on Old Eagle School Road, is accused of illegally dispensing narcotics, evading income taxes, and fraudulently obtaining his medical license.

The case began more than a decade ago. In December 2001, Brown was accused of prescribing Percocet and Xanax without even cursory medical exams.

Court records showed that Brown wrote more than 90 prescriptions - 7,000 pills' worth - to "an individual who is clearly a drug abuser," and wrote 13 Percocet prescriptions, which totaled 800 pills, to undercover officers.

After pleading no contest to a single violation, Brown received a sentence of five years' probation in May 2003. His medical license was suspended.

In May 2007, he was rearrested on more than 800 charges. A grand jury report accused him of continuing his illicit drug sales. He was also accused of using fraud to obtain his medical license in 1985.

Brown's wife, Janice K. Brown, 53, also faces charges related to underreporting the couple's income and illegally claiming a poverty credit for the tax years 2002 through 2005. Both have remained free on bail. A trial on the tax charges will be held later.

The grand jury reported that Brown used various tactics to falsify documents from two of the three foreign medical schools he attended in the 1970s to obtain his medical license. The report said he forged evaluations, falsely claiming he performed clinical work at Bryn Mawr and Phoenixville Hospitals.

According to court records, Brown did perform clinical work at Lankenau Hospital, where doctors urged him to pursue a different career. In 1980, Brown lost a defamation suit against the doctors for their scathing evaluation, court records said.

Defense attorney Stephen I. Baer argued that the statute of limitations had expired on the charges related to Brown's medical license. However, Senior Deputy Attorney General Nancy S. Hartsough contended that the statute of limitations had been extended since Brown perpetuated the fraud every time he renewed his license.

A year ago, Chester County Court Judge Ronald C. Nagle sided with the defense.

"Had the State Medical Board thoroughly evaluated Richard Brown's credentials in 1984, it would have uncovered his deception and refused him a license," Nagle wrote. That the state allowed Brown's "deception to continue is not a basis" to ignore the law, the opinion said.

However, Nagle ruled that the prosecution could use evidence related to Brown's licensure to argue that his practice violated acceptable medical standards.