AGENTS RAID RIVERSIDE MEDICAL CENTER, SEND PATIENTS AWAY
Patients sent away from pain clinic that had faced prior scrutiny.
Agents from drug RIVERSIDE — distribution and Medicaid fraud enforcement agencies raided a Riverside medical facility Thursday, turning away patients and leaving open to speculation just what exactly investigators hoped to find in the boxes they removed from the practice.
None of the agencies would comment on why they raided the Dayton Outpatient Center, a pain management clinic. But decades of Dayton Daily News reporting demonstrate the practice and one of its doctors have faced scrutiny before.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio is the lead investigator, with assistance from the Ohio Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, the Dayton Police Department, the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy.
Montgomery County records show the building at 1010 Woodman Drive was once owned by Dr. Suresh Gupta. The clinic’s website listed him as one of the practice’s providers.
Dennis Lieberman, a Dayton defense attorney, briefly spoke with employees at the site. Lieberman said he represents Gupta, but did not know what investigators sought.
Gupta has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to Thursday’s raid.
In 2015, Gupta was one of the investors who supported Issue 3, the failed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Ohio for recreational and medical use by adults.
As part of its 2015 reporting on the marijuana issue, the Dayton Daily News Columbus Bureau examined Gupta’s background and found that in the two decades he had practiced medicine, he faced five medical malpractice claims, two personal injury cases, multiple business lawsuits and gross sexual imposition charges, according to Montgomery County court records.
He was acquitted in the criminal case in July 2008 and the medical malpractice and injury cases were settled or dismissed, according to the Daily News’ review of court records.
Gupta also faced an administrative action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2008 that accused him of falsifying records submitted in a drug trial. In 2015, an FDA spokeswoman said the agency accepted Gupta’s response and the case was closed.
At the time, Gupta said neither he nor his insurance company ever paid a penny on the civil cases and a jury found him not guilty of the criminal charges. He described himself as an upstanding community leader who raised money for charity, employed 350 people, raised three kids, has been married three decades and enjoys tennis and ballroom dancing.
The 1010 Woodman Drive facility opened in April 1997 after a $2 million construction. By December 1997, the Daily News reported the state health department ordered six employees there to stop performing X-ray procedures for which they were not licensed. At the time, Gupta said the department had objected only to an X-ray machine that was missing a plastic part, but had been fixed.
Patients at the clinic were turned away Thursday. Among them, Eddie Durant said he’s been a patient at the clinic for four months and hoped to get medication for his chronic back pain.
“Unfortunately, I’m going on a cruise Saturday morning, not sure how to get my medication refilled,” he said.