but Now Works in Auto Repair .....
It was a cloudy October morning, and Joseph E. Oesterling, MD, was in the exam room of his Saginaw, Michigan urology practice preparing for a procedure. Suddenly, the door burst open, and a federal agent charged into the exam room unannounced, frightening Oesterling and the patient.
Bewildered, Oesterling peered outside the room to see 10 more officers armed with guns storming through the building. As he watched in horror, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents ransacked his practice and seized paperwork, computers, and records, Oesterling recounted to Medscape. An hour away, officers broke down the door of Oesterling's home in Ann Arbor when his wife didn't immediately answer, shattering glass across the porch. Another raid was simultaneously occurring at Oesterling's practice about 40 minutes away in the town of Caro.
"As all of this was happening, the agents were saying to me, 'We're shutting you down. You're never going to practice again,' " Oesterling said. "They said, 'We're going to throw you in prison, and you're never going to see the light of day.' "
What followed for Oesterling was every doctor's worst nightmare: He was arrested, stripped of his license, cut off from his assets, and charged with seven crimes, including running a criminal enterprise.
But the longtime urologist and renowned researcher fought back. After a grueling trial in 2017, Oesterling was acquitted on all seven charges.
"The government pursued him relentlessly," said Michigan attorney Ronald W. Chapman II, who represented Oesterling in the case. "You've got a man who led a pretty good life who was trying to do the right thing and who ended up getting caught up in straight government greed. The prosecutor's office pursued him because he had assets and he moved into their jurisdiction, and they had enough on him to investigate and charge. Even when we won the criminal case, they didn't take their grip off his life earnings."
Tuscola County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Reene and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Eric Wanink did not respond to messages seeking comment.
"This was the biggest upheaval of my life," said Oesterling, now 64. "I would have never in my wildest dreams imagined leaving medicine this way
Successful Specialist Goes to Jail
A busy urologist with two practices to oversee, Oesterling never intended to take over a family practice clinic in the small, impoverished city of Caro, Michigan. But when the family physician at Caro Family Physicians P.C. died, her husband asked Oesterling if he would run the practice until a permanent replacement could be found. <<link to complete source article>>
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