Two doctors from may get off lightly if they only have to return between $164,000 and $1.3 million they earned while working for pain clinics in West Palm Beach.
 
Doctors Cynthia Cadet and Joseph Castronuovo were facing charges that they were responsible for the overdose deaths of eight patients, which could have netted them life sentences. Instead, they won’t face any jail time. This will mean they’re able to visit several former colleagues, the owner of the clinic and his mother who are all serving time for a pill mill scheme that involved cash-only payments for scripts and “…the greenbacks piled up so quickly they overflowed garbage cans.”
 
What may have saved Cadet and Castronuovo? In addition to being the only ones to ask for a jury trial, they maintained they thought they were helping patients deal with severe pain. Other doctors “six of whom testified in prison blues with their arms and legs shackled,” admitted they knew they were breaking the law.
 
Now it is down to quibbling over how much the doctors will surrender. But as a side note, our reading of Medical Practice Compliance Alert suggests that “I didn’t know I was breaking the law,” isn’t a surefire defense.