NEW YORK MEDICAL BOARD RECORD—009316 DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS—none listed as of 9/25/2018
Drunk Man Crashes Into Parked Car, Kills Passenger: SCPD
The 45-year-old was charged with DWI after the crash early Monday, police said.
Update:
HAUPPAUGE, NY - The passenger who died in the fatal DWI crash has been identified as 40-year-old Wu Wang, of Flushing.
Original story:
HAUPPAUGE, NY - A Hauppauge man was arrested for driving drunk during a fatal car crash in Hauppauge early Monday, according to Suffolk Police.
Suffolk County Police today arrested a Hauppauge man for driving while intoxicated and reckless endangerment following a fatal motor vehicle crash.
Scott Brunengraber, 45, was driving 2016 Lexus southbound on Terry Road when he struck a parked 2017 Toyota at 3:15 a.m., police said.
Brunengraber pulled over on Ingrid Court and his male passenger was transported to St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
Brunengraber was charged with DWI and second degree reckless endangerment. (LINK)—9/24/2018
U.P. doctor charged with 50 felonies, allegedly traded drugs for sexual favors
LANSING, MI – A psychologist from the Upper Peninsula is facing felony charges on 50 counts including first degree criminal sexual conduct and delivery of controlled substances according to a release from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
Michael Wallace Varney, 61, of Caspian, was arraigned on the charges in Marquette County on Thursday, September 20, 2018 before Judge Kangas. Varney is accused of giving patients drugs, including oxycodone, Valium, Dilaudid as well as marijuana in exchange for sexual favors over the last decade.
Schuette’s office charged Varney for the felonies in three different counties, Marquette, Iron and Dickinson counties. Bond was set at $250,000 per count, totaling $1.75 million cash/surety bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for October 3, 2018.
Varney will also be arraigned in Iron and Dickinson counties soon.
“This individual was trusted by his clients and the court system as someone who could help individuals with their drug addictions,” Schuette said in the release. “However, these horrible allegations contradict that. Instead of helping women get back on their feet and entering recovery, there is reason to believe he used his position to take advantage of them, making their addiction worse and sexually assaulting them in the process.”
The attorney general’s office was alerted to an issue involving Varney last year when it received a complaint about Varney. LARA also received a complaint about Varney and eventually suspended his license to practice in July of this year.
After an investigation was launched by the AG’s office, it was alleged that Varney may have been engaging in trading drugs for sexual favors for the last decade. But the drugs do not appear to be giving to patients in the form of prescriptions.
As a limited license psychologist Varney was not legally able to prescribe medication to his patients, according to the release. It also appears that many of the patients Varney saw were referred to him by the court system and probationers. Those patients were required to undergo testing or treatment for drug addiction. (LINK)—
2014003195036081734 Summary Suspension 05/06/201405/06/2014for unprofessional and immoral conduct, to wit: Respondent was arrested and charged with unauthorized videotaping of staff members at two practice locations.
2014003195036081734 Suspension 05/06/2014 due to unprofessional conduct, immoral conduct and conviction of three counts of unauthorized videotaping.
Eye surgeon secretly videotaped women
An eye surgeon who was secretly videotaping women at a hospital and a medical clinic was caught when an employee at the clinic found a camera installed inside a toilet tank, according to prosecutors.
Robert Weiss was arrested Tuesday on felony charges of unauthorized videotaping and was ordered held today in lieu of $75,000 bail in a hearing before Cook County Criminal Court Judge Laura Sullivan.
A 27-year old employee of the Chicago Eye Institute, 3982 N. Milwaukee Ave. – where Weiss has been a partner, according to his biography on the site – had been using a restroom there April 2 when she found a hole in the porcelain of a toilet tank chiseled out to reveal a camera lens, according to a police report.
She removed the tank lid and found a small camera attached to the inside of the tank with Velcro.
Recordings on the memory card inside the camera showed that she and another woman, as well as two other women in a fifth-floor locker room at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, 836 W. Wellington Ave., had been videotaped without their consent, the report said. Weiss had provided care for patients at Illinois Masonic, according to a spokeswoman.
All victims identified themselves in the footage and signed complaints.
Video surveillance footage later showed Weiss, 58, with the camera at Illinois Masonic, a prosecutor said.
Dr. Kathleen Shea, a representative of the Chicago Eye Institute, would not comment on Weiss’s employment status with the institute.
She said in a statement to RedEye that the institute “is dedicated to the well being and safety of its patients and its employees and whenever an issue arises that conceivably poses a risk, the institute acts promptly to thoroughly investigate and address any and all aspects of the problem.”
When asked by RedEye whether Weiss still worked at the institute, she declined to answer but said, “We have taken measures to ensure that the statement I read to you is true.”
Illinois Masonic spokeswoman Noreen Keeney said Weiss is “no longer providing patient care at the hospital while the investigation continues.”
Weiss’ attorney, Aaron Goldstein, said in court Wednesday that Weiss sees about 100 patients a week. Goldstein could not be reached for further comment.
Weiss, of the 900 block of South Michigan Avenue, has been licensed as a physician in the state of Illinois since October 1990, according to state records. He lives with his girlfriend, according to court records.
Weiss is due back in court April 15. (LINK)—4/10/2014
$10 million awarded to female doctor, nurses who sued hospital over physical attack, hidden camera
Seven women, all former employees at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, were awarded a total of more than $10 million on Thursday in a jury verdict stemming from a lawsuit over an attack against a doctor and secret video surveillance of female staff changing and using the restroom, according to an attorney representing the women.
In their lawsuit, filed in September 2014 and amended in June, the plaintiffs accused the hospital of failing to act when violations of its own written policies were reported. The complaint detailed a physical attack on Dr. Caroline Ryan, an anesthesiologist, in July 2013. Dr. Stephen F. Laga, a surgeon, choked and pushed Ryan at a surgical intensive care unit at the hospital, according to the complaint.
When she reported the incident, hospital leadership repeatedly asked Ryan to consider “dropping” the report, even though Laga had a “long and documented” history of violent conduct, according to the filing.
The following year, in a separate instance described in the complaint, six female nurses and technicians who used a locker room and bathroom at the medical center were unlawfully recorded by a hidden camera as they used the restroom and changed into and out of their work clothes, according to the complaint.
The camera was placed inside a toilet by Dr. Robert Weiss, an eye surgeon affiliated with the Chicago Eye Institute, which maintained a location at Illinois Masonic. When the camera (and images of some of the women in various stages of undress) was discovered, Weiss was arrested.
Though the hospital knew of the arrest, it delayed suspending Weiss’ medical privileges, according to the complaint, which also accused the hospital of ignoring other inappropriate sexual conduct by Weiss.
In December 2015, Weiss pleaded guilty to felony charges of unlawful videotaping.
A Cook County jury awarded $7 million in punitive damages against the hospital and $1,175,000 in compensatory damages to the women, said attorney Jeff Kulwin.
In a statement, Adam Mesirow, a spokesman for Illinois Masonic, said “the safety and security of our patients and team members is our top priority.
“With respect to this case, the physicians involved were not a part of our employed medical group and have not practiced at the medical center since 2014. Due to pending litigation, we are unable to offer further comment.” (LINK)—9/07/2018
PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL BOARD RECORD—Number: MD455210 DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS—none listed as of 9/04/2018
Bail revoked for Scranton doctor accused of assaulting wife
A judge Thursday jailed a Geisinger doctor accused of seriously burning his wife’s arm last month with a hot iron, an attack she said culminated a year of torture at his hands.
Unhappy with their year-old arranged marriage in India from the start, Dr. Bhargav C. Paleti often beat his wife, Jaahnari Vajje, after she joined him in the U.S., she told Dunmore police.
Magisterial District Judge Paul Ware ruled Paleti, 29, of 1807 Tall Trees Drive, Dunmore, violated the conditions of his bail when his family members contacted his wife after his arrest March 28. Pateli was barred from having any direct or indirect contact with Vajje while free on $75,000 bail.
Paleti’s family members told Vajje he would divorce her if she dropped the charges, borough police told Ware.
Paleti is charged with two counts of aggravated assault and single counts of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. He denied burning his wife when Dunmore police questioned him, but acknowledged pushing her to the ground and slapping her face when they argued several months ago.
Paleti practiced medicine in Scranton.
Geisinger spokesman David Jolley said system officials just learned of Paleti’s jailing and are “allowing the legal process to move forward.” He declined to comment on whether Geisinger disciplined the doctor.
Pattern alleged
Though Paleti is charged with only one instance of abuse, Vajje told police he began beating her almost immediately after she arrived in the United States in May, a month after he returned here without her.
Paleti frequently punched, kicked or beat her with a belt, according to the affidavit.
In December, Vajje returned to India for a trip expected to last three months and begged her mother to allow her to leave the marriage, but her mother told her to “work things out with her husband,” Dunmore detectives Michael Lydon and Alicia Hallinan wrote in the affidavit.
She returned to the U.S. after only three weeks and faced almost daily beatings, she told police.
Visit to India
The couple flew to India in February on separate planes for the wedding of Paleti family members, but Paleti refused to let her attend the wedding, the detectives wrote. Paleti told his wife that if she followed him back to Dunmore, “he would beat her every day and threatened to divorce her.”
By then, she wanted a divorce, but returned to their Tall Trees apartment on March 14 by bus after he refused to pick her up at a New York City airport.
“The beatings began again,” the detectives wrote.
One kick to her abdomen the week before the iron attack produced “extreme pain and blood in her urine, ” she told police.
The iron attack began when she overheard him talking privately on the telephone to his mother and asked him why he always did that privately.
He pushed her away and told her his family was none of her business.
“You are my husband,” she pleaded.
“You are not my wife,” he replied, and declared he wanted to torture her.
He grabbed the iron, held her left hand tightly and pressed the iron to her forearm. She escaped, ran outside and called police.
“I cannot take the torture any longer,” she told officers.
Doctors found severe burns on her left arm and a round scar on her right forearm from a similar but less severe attack a week earlier, according to the affidavit.
A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for May 1. (LINK)—4/07/2017
Doctor accused of burning wife with iron pleads guilty to disorderly conduct
SCRANTON — A doctor accused of deliberately burning his wife with a hot iron last year pleaded guilty today in Lackawanna County Court to two counts of disorderly conduct.
Dr. Bhargav Chowdary Paleti, 31, Dunmore, was immediately sentenced by President Judge Michael J. Barrasse to one to two months in the county prison, plus two years of probation.
Paleti, who was affiliated with Geisinger at the time, was arrested by Dunmore police on aggravated assault and other charges in March 2017 after his wife told officers he twice burned her with an iron.
The second assault left Jaahnari Vajje, who married Paleti in India in 2016, with severe burns on her right forearm, police said.
Under questioning by Barrasse, Paleti said he understood the rights he was giving up by pleading guilty and indicated he had discussed with his attorney, Jason Mattioli, how it could affect his immigration status.
Before sentencing, Mattioli said Paleti had no prior arrests or any previous contact with the criminal justice system.
Mattioli told Barrasse that Paleti, who lost his job last spring, has made arrangements to move to Montreal, Canada, and must leave the United States by Oct. 9 to avoid potential arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At the time of her husband’s arrest, Vajje told Dunmore police Paleti had been unhappy with their arranged marriage from the outset and frequently subjected her to beatings and other physical abuse, according to court documents. (LINK)—9/04/2018
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