Usav.Robert L. Ignasiak, Jr.
A jury convicted Florida physician Robert Ignasiak on 43 of 54 counts after the government alleged that he prescribed controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose and committed health-care fraud; two charged counts alleged that patients’ deaths resulted from the prescriptions, and the trial also included autopsy reports concerning five uncharged patients. In three related appeals, Ignasiak challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, the admission of the autopsy reports, the denial of a new trial, and the continued sealing of a government notice concerning a key expert witness. The Eleventh Circuit held that the evidence was legally sufficient, but that admitting the five testimonial autopsy reports through a medical examiner who had not performed them violated the Confrontation Clause and was not harmless because the government used the deaths to support its theory across the fraud and drug-distribution counts. The court also held that the public interest required unsealing the notice, which described the expert’s repeated misuse of federal credentials and weapons-related criminal conduct; the new-trial appeal was moot. The court reversed the convictions, vacated the sealing order, and remanded.
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