Judge throws out pandemic-era fraud charges against South Florida doctor for second time
For the second time, a federal judge has thrown out a criminal case accusing a South Florida physician of receiving $260,000 in speaking-engagement fees from a pharmaceutical distributor as compensation for improperly writing prescriptions for the company’s painkillers dating back a decade.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the federal indictment this month against Bart Gatz, 55, who is based in Palm Beach County and has been practicing medicine since 1994. The judge concluded that federal prosecutors tried “to carry out something of a ploy” in an effort to keep the case alive, but ultimately missed the deadline under the five-year statute of limitations to file the Medicare fraud conspiracy case against the physician.
Middlebrooks previously tossed a so-called information charging Gatz with the same offense, after prosecutors had filed it just before the statute of limitations was about to expire in an effort to preserve the case against the physician. Prosecutors found themselves in this predicament in 2020 because the federal grand jury was unable to convene in South Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic that struck that March.
With the statute of limitations running out that August, prosecutors resorted to filing the information as a placeholder; however, it’s a charging document normally agreed to by the prosecution and defense when both sides plan to work out a plea deal without an indictment. The prosecution’s legal maneuver — deployed in a handful of other healthcare, money laundering and fraud cases by the U.S. Attorney’s Office during the pandemic — backfired because Gatz’s defense attorneys did not agree to let their client be charged by information.
This time around, after an appeal, Middlebrooks put an end to the doctor’s criminal case by dismissing the indictment, which was filed in July 2023 — nearly three years after the statute of limitations had expired.
In a 26-page ruling, Middlebrooks wrote that the “government’s inability to indict the defendant on time was partly due to its own delay,” noting that Gatz was under investigation from 2012 to 2015 and that prosecutors were aware of the facts of the case before grand juries were suspended between March and November of 2020.
“When examining the specific circumstances at play here, it is apparent to me that the pandemic is no excuse for the delayed indictment of the defendant,” he wrote.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to say whether it would appeal Middlebrooks’ ruling — a policy decision that is expected to need the Justice Department’s approval.
Gatz’s defense attorney, David O. Markus, said it’s time for the prosecutors to fold their cards.
“Judge Middlebrooks has affirmed an important first principle of our justice system – that the government cannot play fast and loose with people’s rights,” Markus wrote in a statement provided to the Miami Herald.
“The government is always very quick to ask courts to rigidly hold our clients to the most exacting of standards,” he added. “But when the tables are turned, it whines of unfairness. It’s nauseating. So I’m very pleased that their pleas were rejected again.”
