The lead defendant in a consumer-protection lawsuit filed by state regulators actually has been a leader in reforming the marketing of Arkansas chiropractors, his lawyers told a Pulaski County jury Tuesday.
The defendant, Roger Pleasant of Maumelle, also claims to have been an FBI informant.
Defense attorneys also argued that the state's lawsuit is an attack on a vital, yet seldom seen, section of the medical industry that has the potential to affect how Arkansas patients choose their treatments.
Attorney Maximillan Sprinkle promised jurors in his opening statement that there's no evidence to show that Pleasant misrepresented himself as an insurance agent, a doctor or a lawyer, as he's been accused of doing.
Pleasant, 57, always operated under industry standards even as he worked to improve them and bring greater professionalism to the field, said Sprinkle, with co-counsel Willard Proctor.
Pleasant, a Pine Bluff native, and his three co-defendants are accused of violating the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act. They face potential fines of more than $100,000.
On trial with him through Thursday are his 33-year-old son, Rogerick Pleasant, and two former employees, Little Rock brothers James "Jimmy" Hinton, 47, and Brian Hinton, 50.
Assistant Attorney General Shawn Holcomb told the eight men and four women of the jury that he would introduce them today to more than a dozen witnesses who were deceived by Pleasant and the co-defendants.
Holcomb acknowledged that there's little or no evidence any of the witnesses lost money or were physically harmed by the marketers.
But he told jurors that the marketers' misleading tactics were enough to violate the law when they influenced patients, with each one having the potential to be a violation of the deceptive practices law.
Jurors must decide whether the defendants broke the law.
If they make that finding, presiding Circuit Judge Tim Fox will set the resulting fine, which can run up to $10,000 per violation.
Proceedings resume at 9 a.m. today. No chiropractors or doctors are accused of participating.
Holcomb, with Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Craun, said witnesses will testify about how the defendants misled them with promises of free medical services and sometimes even payment for choosing the services of a chiropractor the defendants represented.
Pleasant spent most of Tuesday's proceedings answering questions about how he was paid by the chiropractors who hired him; the training he provided employees, who typically were contract workers like the Hinton brothers; and how he developed and distributed the marketing materials he used.
Describing a 30-year career, he said he has worked for various chiropractors and sometimes doctors to promote their services to people who had been hurt in car crashes.
His goal was to find potential patients, focusing on the ones with insurance, by reviewing police crash reports, then soliciting them, typically over the phone, he said.
His clients would pay a commission for each patient he recruited, money that he would share with his workers, Pleasant said. Over the years, he said, he has paid his workers anywhere from one half of the proceeds to a third.
But he also described a cutthroat, combative industry. His competitors have regularly slandered him and his company and even impersonated him to harm his company and discourage potential patients from using his service, he told jurors.
Kidney problems that ranged from daily dialysis to a difficult recovery from a transplant kept him from the helm of his operations during most of the time covered by the lawsuit, June 2009 through June 2014, when it was filed, he said.
He also testified that if his answers at trial were different from those in depositions, it could be because the 23 medications he takes as a result of the transplant affect his memory.
Publicity from the suit was so bad that it drove him out of business, he said, telling jurors that he now works as a process server.
Pleasant interjected a note of mystery into the proceedings with testimony that some of the marketing techniques that are being challenged were influenced by work he did with the FBI, which he said had assigned him the code name Riding Horse.
Before he was cut off by objections from state lawyers, Pleasant testified that he began his affiliation with federal agents in 2010. He also said that he was barred from talking about his work for the FBI when he was deposed by Holcomb in December 2013.
Holcomb asked the judge to tell jurors to disregard the testimony, but Fox didn't. He did tell Pleasant not to repeat the claims since they couldn't be immediately verified.
The judge also questioned how anything Pleasant could have done for the FBI could affect accusations that he'd broken the deceptive practices law.
Agather McKeel, the Hinton brothers' attorney, told jurors, "What it all boils down to is they help consumers." The job title is sometimes marketer, agent or procurer, she said.
McKeel said jurors would see no evidence that the brothers used "arm-twisting" or deceptive tactics, only the hard work the siblings had put into their job, soliciting patients on behalf of their clients.
The brothers find people who need help and put them in touch with the people who can provide it, she said.
The defendants include five companies the senior Pleasant founded, owned or operated between June 2009 and June 2014: Information and Discovery Inc., PSG and Investigation LLC, Accident Claim Service LLC, Physician 1st Marketing Group LLC, and Network Collision Group LLC.
Metro on 10/05/2016