A Maumelle man accused of using misleading tactics to recruit patients for his chiropractor clients was paid $91,000 in one month by a Little Rock clinic in 2013, according to evidence presented in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Wednesday.
Dr. Heath Delane Lenox, who owns Markham Injury Center, said Roger Pleasant was the only marketer he used during his clinic's first two years of operation from May 2012 until June 2014.
Marketers like Pleasant, formally known as procurers, bring in about 75 percent of his clients, said Lenox, who is a sole practitioner.
Questioned by Assistant Attorney General Shawn Johnson, Lenox said he paid Pleasant $600 per client recruited to the west Little Rock chiropractic clinic as long as the patient had insurance and underwent three billable treatment sessions.
The treatment requirement rose to five in 2014, although the amount per patient he paid to Pleasant stayed the same, Lenox told jurors.
Pleasant's marketing techniques are on trial in a consumer-protection lawsuit brought by the attorney general's office, which accuses Pleasant, his son and two former employees of violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
State regulators say the defendants, led by Pleasant, regularly duped potential patients with false promises of free health care and by passing themselves off as working for insurers.
The state's lawsuit focuses on a four-year span between June 2009 and June 2014, when the litigation was filed.
If the eight men and four women of the jury decide the defendants have broken the law, they can be fined up to $10,000 per violation by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox. The final day of proceedings begins at 9 a.m. today with the defense calling three witnesses to testify.
Lenox, the last of the state's witnesses, said he provides his marketers, who mostly worked by phone, with a script because he wants to make sure they do not misrepresent themselves or the services he offers.
Most of the patients being recruited have been hurt in car crashes, and the marketers try to reach them as soon as possible after the wrecks, Lenox said.
The defendants have denied wrongdoing. Pleasant's attorneys have cast him as a reformer in the rough-and-tumble medical marketing industry that has only recently been brought to heel through regulations imposed by the Legislature.
The lawyers say their clients have been performing an important service by connecting injured victims to a necessary service that can ease their pain.
Defense attorneys Willard Proctor and Agather McKeel also questioned the motivations of some witnesses who complained about Pleasant to regulators and suggested that at least one witness who testified Wednesday may have been intimidated into cooperating with authorities.
Witness Lamar King told jurors he was willingly cooperating, although he said the way he was approached by authorities through his parole officer had initially made him nervous.
During cross-examination, Laylia Byrd told jurors she'd been so angry by the way that another of the defendants, James "Jimmy" Hinton, had approached her, by showing up at her daughter's school, that she had gone to a different chiropractor.
Her doctor at Carter Chiropractor gave her a form to complain to state regulators and provided the notary required to fill out the form, Byrd said.
The first of the 12 complaining witnesses called to take the stand, 22-year-old Ashina Speaks of Little Rock, ended up being arrested at the order of the judge after she refused to testify. In front of jurors, she balked when the judge tried to swear her in, saying she'd only come to court because the state attorneys had made her.
"I don't want to testify against anyone," Speaks told the judge. "I was subpoenaed to come here."
After a whispered consultation with both sides, the judge offered her a second chance to cooperate, warning her that she risked contempt of court. But she again refused, and he ordered her arrest.
Speaks spent about 5 1/2 hours in a courthouse cell before the judge brought her back, saying he had planned to release her but had discovered that she had an outstanding traffic warrant and that Little Rock police were coming to arrest her. She was released from jail Wednesday evening.
Five businesses that Pleasant has been associated with are also on trial. Lenox told jurors he knew Pleasant to have operated two of them: Physician 1st Marketing Group, and PSG & Investigation. Lenox said Pleasant had also operated a third company, PSG Investigation, but that company isn't on the list of defendants.
Lenox told jurors that bad publicity sparked by the lawsuit's filing had persuaded him to end his association with the defendants, although he has since rehired Pleasant's son, Rogerick Pleasant, describing the 33-year-old as a "straight shooter."
The chiropractor showed jurors pay records demonstrating how he'd paid Pleasant in biweekly installments.
The payments ranged from a high of $50,700 for two weeks' work in August 2013, which Lenox testified represented about 83 patient recruitments, to a low of $4,200 per two-week stint. Pleasant reached that nadir three or four times during the roughly two years he worked for Lenox.
The records show that Pleasant was paid $91,000 for the entire month of August 2013 and $23,500 in his final month with Lenox.
Also on Wednesday, the judge considered arresting a court spectator after he was seen taking photographs in the courtroom, just as jurors were leaving for the day. Photographing in the courtroom is barred without the judge's permission.
Confronted by the judge, the man, wearing a leather vest with a God Speed patch on the back, the name of a Alabama-based biker ministry, said he was a former marketer with no affiliation with anyone in the courtroom. He told the judge he wanted to see the trial.
The man admitted he had been taking photographs and offered to delete them, saying he did not know the photography was not allowed.
He gave his name, which wasn't clear, and promised that he had not uploaded the photos onto the Internet. The judge allowed him to leave after he deleted the pictures in front of the bailiff, Mark Ross.
Metro on 10/06/2016