Nurse Accused of Killing Patients With Insulin; Naturopath Settles False Claims Suit

Former nurse Heather Pressdee has been accused of giving patients excessive amounts of insulin, killing two of them and hospitalizing a third. Pressdee allegedly told another nurse at the facility that one of the patients who died "would be better off dead." (People)

California physician Joseph Andrew Mollick, MD, was sentenced to 2 years in prison for possession of child pornography. Mollick admitted that in 2019, he used the social media app Kik to upload an image of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and his laptop held at least 2,000 images of minors engaged in sex acts, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California.

Missing Missouri doctor John Forsyth, MD, was found dead Tuesday in Arkansas with an apparent gunshot wound. (USA Today)

An Indiana woman was indicted for fraudulently receiving almost $55,000 in disability benefits while posing as a nurse, even though she didn't have a nursing license in the state, authorities said. (Indy Star)

Connecticut naturopathic doctor Marcos De Escobar and his company Corebella Health will pay nearly $400,000 to settle allegations that they billed for allergy immunotherapy services rendered by physicians when they were actually performed by nurse practitioners, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut.

Michigan vascular surgeon Vasso Godiali, MD, was sentenced to 80 months in prison for submitting claims for placing vascular stents and doing thrombectomies that were never performed. He'll also have to pay the U.S. about $43 million to resolve related civil allegations, and repay $19.5 million to Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

A Michigan jury awarded $31.6 million to a family whose daughter suffered permanent brain damage at birth at MyMichigan Medical Center-Midland. Lawyers for the family of 4-year-old Kendall Berthiaume, who has been diagnosed with spastic quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, and a seizure disorder, argued that a C-section did not happen quickly enough. (ABC 12)

A jury in Rhode Island awarded a woman $4 million for a botched laparoscopic hysterectomy that left her with a severe injury to her right-side ureter. (The Providence Journal)

New York physician Frank Parasmo, MD, was sentenced to 36 months in prison and 3 years supervised release for unlawfully distributing oxycodone to 18 patients without a legitimate medical purpose. Parasmo issued prescriptions to patients who had just left detox treatment in rehabilitation facilities or were recently discharged from a hospital following an overdose, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Former Connecticut state representative Michael DiMassa was sentenced to 27 months in prison for stealing more than $1.2 million from a local city -- most of it in COVID relief aid -- in large part to fuel his gambling addiction. (AP)

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