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Jury convicts doctor in 5 drug deaths

PENSACOLA - A federal jury convicted an Apalachicola doctor Monday of causing the deaths of five patients through overdoses of highly potent painkillers, including morphine and oxycodone.

Dr. Thomas G. Merrill kept his head down as the verdict was read, but family members sobbed loudly as the 70-year-old former Air Force doctor was taken into custody.

U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers set sentencing for April 21. Merrill could receive life in prison.

He was convicted on 98 of 100 counts, including illegally dispensing controlled substances, defrauding health care benefit programs and wire fraud. Merrill's attorney, Jim Appleman, plans to appeal.

Prosecutor Stephen Kunz told jurors Merrill's practice became a destination for drug seekers from throughout Florida. He said Merrill wrote 33,000 prescriptions from January 2001 to May 2004, 81 percent of them for controlled substances.

Merrill was "a drug dealer with an osteopathic license," Kunz said in closing arguments last week.

But Appleman told the jury that Merrill was "conned" by patients who exaggerated their pain to obtain drugs and then mixed their prescriptions with cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs.

Merrill had worked at the Magnolia Clinic in Apalachicola since 1994. The state suspended his license in May 2004 during a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation. A federal grand jury indicted him in August.

[Last modified January 31, 2006, 00:29:05]