John D. Georgetti
On May 25th of
this year my fiancé, John D. Georgetti, was given a prescription by his regular
physician, which was written incorrectly.
When the pharmacists contacted the doctor regarding this mistake, the
doctor denied knowledge. My fiancé was
then arrested by a State Trooper.
My fiancé has been unable to
hold long term employment due to a work related back injury some years
ago. He has been on pain management
medication for a considerable amount of time.
Because he has been unable to work he had to apply for a Public
Defender, Mr. Frank H. Hamlin III, Esq.
During the course of this
process, prior to his jury trial, the Assistant District Attorney, Brian
Dennis, made several offers to my fiancé to accept guilt without a jury
trial. On advice from counsel as well as
our own knowledge all offers were declined because my fiancé was not guilty of
this charge.
On December 21st
we went to trial. When in the discovery
phase of this case, we made sure the Public Defender was aware of several other
prescriptions this physician had written that were blatantly altered. One of which was done a few weeks after this
item in question, and to which I was a witness.
Due to the incompetence of the Public Defender, Mr. Hamlin, these other
items were not introduced as evidence that this physician had a propensity to
make mistakes.
An attending pharmacist at
the physicians office was prepared to be a witness to this physicians errors,
but once again, due to the incompetence of the Public Defender, his testimony was
not allowed, as well as any mention of same by me.
Mr. Brian Dennis, the
Assistant District Attorney for
The outcome of this farce of
a trial was obviously a guilty verdict.
My fiancé was given a 2-4 year sentence.
At the sentencing Judge Reed gave my fiancé a lecture on Oxycontin being
a street heroin equivalent. We are
puzzled by this lecture as this medication was not Oxycontin? Also, as his fiancé, I was told that my
evidence was not to be believed over the Doctors assistant, because of her
stature?
Let me be clear here. I cannot deny my fiancé has not done wrong
over the course of his life. Yes, he has
been in trouble with the law; however, since he has been with me, he has been
making every effort to correct his past mistakes. We both visited his physician to discuss his
pain medication treatment. We informed
the physician many times that we wanted to address his possible addiction, and that we wanted him to be weaned off
of any narcotics. Because of the length
of time this physician has been medicating him, this had to be done slowly and
with different medications. We had made
significant progress prior to all of this.
I was a witness to this
entire fiasco, along with the following incorrectly issued prescription amount
by this physician. Also, at trial this
physician not only was allowed to violate the HIPA law, but to also make up
some story regarding someone else’s possession of this script that day. After this incident in May of 2005, I
attended a visit with my fiancé and the physician and at that time he stated he
was making a statement that someone else had temporary possession of this
script and I asked him why he would do that?
He would not give me a direct response.
He also claimed I had told him that my fiancé was buying medications off
the street? I was appalled that he would
even imply that of me. I have had no
interaction with the law or with this kind of environment, in my entire life!
This physician, Sudipt S.
Deshmuk, M.D. did not use any type of carbon copy prescription pads, which he
wrote and did not have typed. He only
has his word that he dispensed narcotics accurately. We only have the fact that we were ignorant
for not looking at the prescription prior to leaving the physicians office and
presenting it to a pharmacist. As this
was practically a weekly process it did not occur to us to do so.
Now, my options with my fiancé
are to hire another incompetent Public Defender who is versed in Appellate law
to appeal his conviction. The Catch 22
of this injustice is if we file an appeal, he stays in prison for as long as it
takes, but if we allow the court to leave this felony on his record, he may get
out of prison at an earlier opportunity.
BEING POOR SHOULD NOT BE THE CRIME! Please know I would not defend this man if I
knew in any way that he was guilty. I
believe that if you do the crime you do the time. This man did not do the crime. What recourse do I have, other than sell my
home to come up with funds to defend an innocent man and get him the FAIR trial
that he deserves, to sue the Family Court judge for accusations against my
character as an individual he does not know, and a Public Defender who had no
conception of how to fight a felony case?
Thank you for your time in
reading this letter. I have tried to
keep this concise and unemotional, but I feel that a great injustice has been
done, and my faith in any kind of legal system has been destroyed. In never
occurred to me that not being able to retain paid counsel would result in such
incompetence. I am very saddened at our
treatment by the system.
Respectfully yours,
Christine S. O’Brien
(585) 742-1999
(585) 509-4729