LITTLE ROCK — For orchestrating a Feb. 4, 2009, explosion that left the Arkansas State Medical Board chairman partially blind and partially deaf, former Russellville physician Randeep Mann, 53, will spend the rest of his life in prison, a federal judge ruled Monday.
His wife, Sangeeta Mann, 49, who was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into her husband’s possession of grenades and involvement in the bombing, was sentenced to a year in prison but was allowed to remain free while appealing her conviction.
After U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller handed down the sentences in a hearing that lasted about an hour and a half, Trent Pierce, 56, who remains the medical board chairman and a practicing physician two years after the explosion outside his West Memphis home,evaded reporters, as was his habit during the Manns’ five week trial last summer.
But inside Miller’s Little Rock courtroom, before the sentences were delivered, Pierce stood at a courtroom lectern and read aloud a typed statement urging the judge to consider “the precariousness of my future with one remaining eye and ear,” as well as the vengeful motive behind the attack.
“I believe his acts were meant as revenge for decisions” of the board, Pierce said, referring to sanctions the board imposed against Mann for over-prescribing narcotics to several patients who died from overdoses.
In 2003 and again in 2006, the board yanked Mann’s authority to write prescriptions for narcotics, which had a detrimental effect on Mann’s income. At the time of the explosion, the board was beginning a new investigation that threatened to permanently strip Mann of his medical license.
Pierce testified at the trial that he had made it clear that he considered Mann a danger to the community and was opposed to restoring his medical privileges.
In his statement to the judge, Pierce also said he believes that Mann orchestrated the bombing to scare and intimidate the other members of the medical board. He said people engaged in “honorable work” to serve the common good shouldn’t have to experience such fear.
The doctor also said he believed that Mann’s actions were “based on an incorrect assumption that violence could change decisions by the medical board” and noted that in a civil society, there are other ways to express dissatisfaction with medical board rulings.
Outside the courthouse, the mother of Ellie Leighanna Harris, a 21-year-old woman who died in 2002 from a drug overdose while she was a patient of Mann’s, was less diplomatic.
“It’s a glorious day,” said Teresa Harris of Russellville. “He got exactly what he should have gotten. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as others. ... There is a trail of blood behind him, and I get to see my only child at the cemetery partly because of what he did.”
Harris added, “I thought it was wonderful to see a skinny little decrepit man shackled up.”
She was referring to Mann, who has become smaller in stature over two years of being jailed, mostly in solitary confinement, being led into the courtroom in shackles and blue jail garb.
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Harris and Georgia Ann Barber, a native Arkansan who drove from Key West, Fla., to see Mann sentenced, showed reporters a funeral program bearing a photograph of the women’s daughter and niece, who they described as an artist and a poet who loved the outdoors.
Although a lawsuit filed on behalf of several former patients of Mann’s is pending, Harris isn’t part of it. She said she never sued Mann, partly because the statute of limitations expired before she was prepared to sue.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Duke, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas during Mann’s trial, told reporters after the sentencings, “I am very, very proud of the efforts by prosecutors and investigators on this case. It has truly been a team effort. Today closes a chapter in what is an ongoing book.”
Duke and Grover Crossland, the local agent in charge of the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, have previously said that the investigation remains open, as they believe Mann didn’t act alone.
While they believe he orchestrated the explosion, they don’t believe he was the person who actually duct-taped a grenade to a spare tire and propped it against the front bumper of Pierce’s sport utility vehicle overnight so that it exploded when the tire was moved.
Pierce picked up the tire to move it away from the vehicle as he prepared to drive first to his local clinic and then to Little Rock for a medical board meeting. Mann had an alibi - being clocked in at his gym - for the night before the bombing, when a passerby reported seeing an Indian man with long hair pulled into a ponytail jogging in place near the Pierce’s driveway -- a possible lookout for whoever was setting the bomb.
Duke, flanked by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen Whatley and Michael Gordon, who tried the case, told reporters that although Pierce and his wife, Melissa, aren’t ready to talk about the case publicly, they are the “true heroes” in the ordeal because of their display of “dignity, courage, grace and resilience” throughout the investigation and trial.
“Dr. Pierce has dedicated himself ... so we can all enjoy better health care,” Duke said.
She said the sentence sends“a very serious message, and I hope it has the deterrent effect it’s supposed to have.”
Asked about Miller’s statements before imposing Sangeeta Mann’s sentence, Duke said, “There are rightfully a lot of questions on culpability that you have to address,” and noted that the judge struggled with balancing punishment and mercy.
Sangeeta Mann was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding and aiding and abetting the tampering of evidence, both related to moving documents out of her husband’s medical clinic at his request, after he was jailed, to keep investigators from finding them. The documents turned out to be irrelevant to the case.
Miller told Sangeeta Mann he could sentence her to up to 20 years in prison, although advisory sentencing guidelines recommended 46 to 57 months behind bars on the basis of the facts of her case and her lack of a criminal history. She also faced a fine of $10,000 to $100,000.
Defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig asked the judge to sentence Mann below the guideline range, suggesting that a sentence of probation, home detention or confinement in a halfway house would be appropriate.
“What we’re dealing with here is a woman who was married to Dr. Mann for decades,” Rosenzweig said. “At his request, she moved records from Point A to Point B, and that’s basically it.”
He asked Miller to “recognize the stresses and strains when a lifetime partner has been arrested and asks her to help,” saying that breaking the law was inconsistent with her character.
Whatley argued that Mann is well-educated and independent, and “was not under the control of her husband.”
Miller openly wrestled with the proper sentence for Sangeeta Mann, reciting testimony about her actions and noting, “There’s a part of me that, throughout the whole trial, looked at Mrs. Mann and wondered, Why is she here?”
He said he had read more than 65 letters written on her behalf and had thought about giving her probation, but ultimately decided that she must serve some prison time to deter others from obstructing justice.
Miller also imposed a $50,000 fine for Sangeeta Mann, in addition to a $100,000 fine for Randeep Mann.
Under federal law, fines are to be paid after restitution is paid in full.
Because Randeep Mann’s defense attorneys, Erin Cassinelli Couch and Blake Hendrix, have demanded an accounting of what the government contends should be $1.7 million in restitution to Pierce, Miller agreed to put the restitution issue on hold for now, to be resolved within the next 90 days.
Meanwhile, Couch and Hendrix said Randeep Mann himself “absolutely” plans to appeal his conviction. They maintain he is innocent.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/01/2011