Oklahoma City Psychiatrist Charged with Illegal Distribution of Controlled Prescription Drugs Resulting in the Death of Five Individuals 

U.S. Attorney’s OfficeMarch 21, 2012

Western District of Oklahoma(405) 553-8700

OKLAHOMA CITY—A federal grand jury has charged AMAR NATH BHANDARY, M.D., 51, from Oklahoma City, with a 53-count indictment alleging illegal distribution of controlled substances to eight separate individuals, which resulted in the death of five of those individuals, announced Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma.

According to the indictment, Dr. Bhandary was licensed to practice medicine in Oklahoma and was engaged in the practice of psychiatry. The indictment alleges that Dr. Bhandary dispensed various controlled drugs to eight separate individuals outside the course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose in 2008 and 2009. It is further alleged that Dr. Bhandary’s actions resulted in the death of five of those individuals from drug toxicity.

The drugs dispensed by Dr. Bhandary included opiates (Schedule II controlled narcotic pain relievers) and benzodiazepines (Schedule IV controlled central nervous system depressants), which are each available by prescription only. When opiates and benzodiazepines are taken together, there is a greatly increased risk of respiratory depression and death. The specific drugs dispensed included morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone, oxymorphone, meperidine, alprazolam, diazepam, temazepam, and clonazepam.

If convicted, Dr. Bhandary faces no less that 20 years and up to life in prison for each of the five counts of illegal distribution of controlled substances that resulted in the five deaths. In addition, he faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the other 48 counts of illegal distribution of the controlled substances.

These charges are the result of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Norman Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Sengel.

The public is reminded that an indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial, at which the government must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Reference is made to the indictment for further information.

Austrian Law Student Faces Down Facebook

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times

Monday, February 06, 2012

Austrian Law Student Faces Down Facebook

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN

BERLIN — As Wall Street prepares for a record, multibillion-dollar initial stock sale from Facebook, the social networking site, a meeting with the potential to shape the economics of the deal was set to take place Monday in Vienna.

Richard Allan, a former member of Parliament in Britain who is the European director of policy for Facebook, and another executive from Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, will meet with Max Schrems, a 24-year-old college student.

Mr. Schrems, a law student at the University of Vienna and a user of Facebook since 2008, has led a vocal campaign in Europe against what he maintains are Facebook’s illegal practices of collecting and marketing users’ personal data, often without consent.

In less than a year, Mr. Schrems’s one-person operation has morphed into a Web site, Europe Versus Facebook, and a grass-roots movement that has persuaded 40,000 people to contact Facebook in Ireland, where its European headquarters are located, to demand a summary of all the personal data the U.S. company is holding on them.

Mr. Schrems and his crusade have become a cause célèbre in parts of Europe, attracting the attention of lawmakers in Brussels as the Continent begins a lengthy debate over tough new proposed restrictions on personal data, which could affect Web businesses like Facebook.

Last month, the author of a proposed European data protection law, which would update a 1995 statute to reflect the realities of the digital age, cited Mr. Schrems’s case as an example of why European lawmakers should adopt tightened controls over Web businesses.

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