Attorneys push to dismiss Husel’s charges
Judge to hear motions on doctor’s 25 murder counts
The attorneys for Dr. William Husel, a former emergency room physician for the Mount Carmel Health System, will call a series of witnesses beginning
Wednesday morning in an effort to convince a Franklin County judge that 25 murder counts filed against their client should be dismissed.
Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Holbrook has set aside three days for the hearing on Husel’s motion to dismiss, which was filed more than a year ago by defense attorneys Jose Baez and Diane Menashe.
The motion alleges that then-franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’brien engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by withholding evidence favorable to Husel when the case was presented to a grand jury.
If the judge denies the defense motion, a jury trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 14 on charges that Husel purposely caused the deaths of 25 Mount Carmel Health intensive-care patients from February 2015 through November 2018 by prescribing overdoses of pain medication.
Baez, a Florida-based defense attorney, and Menashe, a litigator for Ice Miller LLC in Columbus, did not respond to requests for comment on the hearing.
Husel, 46, who had previously resided in Liberty Township near Dublin and whose license to practice has been suspended by the state medical board,
pleaded not guilty to the murder counts, He and his defense team contend that he was providing comfort care to terminally ill patients in their final hours and not attempting to shorten their lives.
Each murder count in the indictment is based on a patient who died after receiving at least 500 micrograms of fentanyl, a powerful opioid. All but one of the deaths occurred at the former Mount Carmel West hospital in Franklinton; one patient died at Mount Carmel St. Ann’s hospital in Westerville.
“At the 500-microgram level there would be no legitimate medical purpose,” O’brien said when the indictment was filed in June 2019. “The only purpose would be to hasten their deaths.”
The motion to dismiss contends that prosecutors failed to present evidence of patients under Husel’s care who received more than 500 micrograms of fentanyl and did not die as a result.
The defense team has focused specifically on the case of a patient identified only as “T.Y.” According to the motion to dismiss, T.Y. received a combined 2,500 micrograms of fentanyl within 37 minutes on Nov. 23, 2014, but survived for 10 more days.
“The T.Y. records conclusively disprove the theory that 500 micrograms is a lethal dosage,” the defense motion states. “They also disprove the theory that the only rational purpose in administering this kind of dose would be to shorten someone’s life.”
By withholding information from the grand jury about cases such as T.Y.’S, O’brien presented a “false narrative” that “substantially influenced the grand jury’s decision to indict Dr. Husel for murder,” the defense team wrote.
O’brien, a Republican who was the longest-serving prosecutor in county history and was defeated by Democrat Gary Tyack in his bid for reelection in November 2020, did not return a message from The Dispatch seeking comment.
Baez and Menashe also filed a motion asking the judge to provide them with the grand jury testimony, but Holbrook denied that request.
Husel was fired in December 2018 and has been accused by Mount Carmel and its parent company, Michiganbased Trinity Health Corp., of ordering excessive or potentially fatal doses of painkillers for 35 seriously ill patients at two hospitals. Several civil suits have been filed against Husel in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Husel has been free on $1 million bond on the criminal charges since shortly after his arrest.
The Husel case was one of the primary reasons cited when Ohio this year ended the distinction of being the only U.S. state that did not license hospitals. jfutty@dispatch.com @johnfutty