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Doctor isn't off hook, just not within reach

What's the status of a doctor accused of taking liberties with a patient? Officials say he's in Syria, where they can't force him to return for trial.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published December 11, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Dr. A. Hussam Armashi is accused of drugging a patient and touching her in ways that are not okay. This is not the first time he has been accused of this sort of thing. The state's case against the Spring Hill pain doctor is in limbo, though, and has been ever since Armashi didn't show up at a late August pretrial conference and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest and set the bond at a half-million dollars.

The prosecutor, the authorities, his lawyers - they all know where he is.

They just don't know when he's coming back.

Or if.

Lori and Tommy Allain, of course, are Hernando County's most notorious fugitives, or at least the most widely known. They've been missing since they failed to appear on Oct. 25 for the start of their long-awaited trial on child abuse and neglect charges. But under the Allains' mug shots on the sheriff's list of wanted subjects is Armashi.

He is in Damascus, Syria, where he is from and where he is now apparently caring for his sick mother. His home phone here has been disconnected. His big house in the gated Lake in the Woods community off U.S. 19 appears abandoned.

But because the United States has no extradition treaties with Syria, there's very little, if anything, county, state and federal officials can do about any of this.

Armashi's lawyers, Jimmy Brown of Brooksville and Jackson Brownlee of Orlando, filed an appeal after the last pretrial, arguing that precedent dictated that their client didn't need to be present until the actual trial. But that motion was denied by the 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach.

The next step, then - well, there is no next step, at least not until Armashi turns himself in, which is what Brown has told him to do.

"At this point," Brown said last week, "we have to arrange a voluntary surrender, and we can't do anything until that happens."

In August, though, even Brown told the St. Petersburg Times that there was a "snowball's chance in hell" of his client coming back to this country.

"I would say the odds are against that," prosecutor Bill Catto said this week.

"People skip," he said.

"They don't usually skip to Syria."

Armashi, 58, was arrested in February and charged with sexual battery on an incapacitated person after a patient said he had injected her in January with a potent dose of medication and then lifted her shirt and bra and pulled down her pants and panties. The patient came to, ripped an IV out of her arm and ran. It was the fourth time in the past five years that Armashi had been accused of something like that.

The Florida Department of Health suspended his license after the most recent allegations.

But Armashi didn't come to his pretrial in July. Circuit Judge Jack Springstead ordered that he appear at his next pretrial, on Aug. 5. That didn't happen.

So Springstead issued the warrant.

Armashi's house in Lake in the Woods was for sale at that time. The five-bedroom, 6,345-square-foot home has marble floors, custom Italian woodworking and a pool. "PRICED $100K BELOW APPRAISED VALUE!!" stated the ad on hernandomls.com, the county's multiple listing service real estate Web site.

It never sold.

A1 Realty's listing term expired.

"We stopped representing him," agent Jason Hahn said last week.

The house is no longer an active listing on hernandomls.com.

Brown, meanwhile, talked to Armashi this month.

"He said that right now it was impossible for him to return at this point," the lawyer said. "He's got problems with his mom and some personal problems of his own and some other connected things that are all tied together."

All Catto knows is this: "He's temporarily out of our jurisdiction, and maybe permanently," the prosecutor said. "He's over there, and it's not a satisfactory thing at all, but I don't know that there's anything we can do."

The Sheriff's Office is working with the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Office of International Affairs, said Deputy Donna Black, the Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. Armashi's passport has been flagged. If he enters this country, or even if he enters a country with which the United States has domestic relations, he will be arrested.

"But there is no search," Black said, "because there is no treaty.

"We can't extradite him."

On Friday, at Armashi's home in Lake in the Woods, one of the fancy glass lights was broken and weeds were sticking out from between the driveway's two-toned bricks.

There was a pink, faded notice at the front door from the Hernando County Utilities Department dated Nov. 14. It said the water had been turned off due to $45.14 in overdue bills.

A small piece of wet white paper was rolled up and stuck in the door handle. It was a $58 invoice from a Spring Hill turf care and pest management company addressed to Armashi's wife.

No one answered the doorbell.

Armashi did not respond to an e-mail sent last week to his Hotmail address.

In the last week of August, though, he did answer an e-mail from the Times.

That response, verbatim, read like this:

I APPRECIATE YOUR PROFICIENTLY E-MAIL

I WILL KEEP YOUR E-MAIL ADDESS, FORTHAT DAY WHEN I FEEL THAT I NEED TO TAKE THAT OPPORTUNITY

PLEASE ACCEPT MY BEST REGARDS

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:15:36]