By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer
HERMITAGE
April 11, 2008 11:31 pm
—
It is, perhaps, rare that a federal judge sits in awe of a person the judge has just sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti, Pittsburgh, said she was impressed with the ability of Brent J. Detelich to help people turn their lives around, as he had done his own.
“You are, in many ways, extremely remarkable as a person,” Judge Conti told Detelich. “You have a lot of good qualities. Look at what you’ve done to help people with their lives.”
But, the judge said, the strong, charismatic personality that Detelich has used as a force for good, can easily be turned to manipulate people to their detriment.
“I am so troubled ... by that other side of your personality,” she said.
Detelich, 38, of Clearwater Fla., formerly of Hermitage and Clark, was convicted by a jury 13 months ago of health care fraud and mail fraud for billing Highmark Inc. for services never rendered to patients.
While Detelich has made no public statements on the case, his attorney Robert J. Ridge of Thorp Reed & Armstrong, Pittsburgh, said Detelich has admitted all along that he was guilty of some of the wrongdoing alleged by the government.
Detelich’s beef has been with the indictment.
Ridge noted that the government abandoned two prongs of the three-prong scheme alleged in the indictment, and he has maintained all along that the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Pittsburgh, waited too long to get an indictment, violating the five-year statute of limitations on the charges.
The jury and Judge Conti disagreed.
While recognizing Detelich’s transformation from a substance abusing party boy and less-than-stellar father and husband to a devoted family man, compassionate friend and model citizen, Judge Conti said evidence of Detelich manipulating others has been documented as late as 2005, long after family members and friends said he had turned his life around.
The judge noted secret tape recordings made of Detelich in conversation with former employee Donald K. Proper and Proper’s wife, Beverlee, in 2002, and Detelich and friend David Dusha in 2005.
The FBI asked the Propers and Dusha to try to get Detelich to discuss the dealings at the former Detelich Chiropractic and Advanced Medical and Holistic of Hermitage, both formerly of Hermitage.
In the tapes, Detelich tells the Propers and Dusha to tell the FBI they don’t know anything; speaks of a former patient as having been “handled”; and said, “I’m not goin’ down on this. I’m not takin’ anyone with me but, if someone goes against me, they’re gonna go down.”
Ridge said Detelich’s “fight or flight” reflex had been engaged because of the probe, but that Detelich was not trying to tell them what to do.
Judge Conti disagreed and found that the tapes were evidence that Detelich had obstructed justice, which increased the sentencing guidelines.
“It’s hard to digest, after all the good you have done, how you could have engaged in those conversations,” she said.
Detelich “used” his employees for personal gain, preyed on their sense of loyalty and vulnerability, and exposed them to conduct they probably would not have engaged in if he had not initiated the scheme, Judge Conti said.
Sentencing guidelines recommended a prison term of 41 to 51 months. Judge Conti said she credited Detelich for the good he has done in cutting five months off the sentence.
She also determined that Detelich, although he has been making $200,000 to $300,000 a year since 2002 in consulting work, has no ability to pay all or part of a fine, so she waived the fine. Detelich still has to pay $91,025 in restitution to Highmark.
Following his release from prison, Detelich will serve 2 years’ supervised release.
Prior to sentencing, Detelich expressed no regrets for having gone through a legal battle that caused him to sell off most of his business interests to pay attorney’s fees, and refused to distance himself from the unsavory aspects of his past.
“I have felt the entire impact of all my actions, good and bad,” he said.
He said the things is has done that he is proud of and those he is ashamed of have helped form the person he is today.
Detelich laid bare his failings and recovery in detail through personal documents and 28 letters from family members and friends provided to the judge, and the testimony of eight, most of whom left the witness box in tears as they pleaded for the judge to show mercy.
Detelich’s parents, James Detelich, Marina Del Ray, Calif., and Barbara Bartolon, Adamsville, still smarting from the January death of their 36-year-old son, Blair, after two decades of drug and alcohol abuse, openly admitted failings on their part that they believe led to Brent Detelich’s drug and alcohol abuse, womanizing and sordid behavior in 1995-99.
They also marveled at his turnaround since then, and wondered where the strength to pull it off came from.
“He has been more of a father to me than I was to him,” James Detelich said.
“Brent’s my son, he’s my friend, he’s my confidante, he’s my teacher,” Mrs. Bartolon said.
“He’s a very wise person,” she said. “There’s nothing he would tell me to do I would think twice about.”
Friends testified as to how Detelich saved their marriages and businesses, got them into counseling for problems such as gambling, and preached a gospel of ethics, integrity and adherence to the law.
“I would be proud to call him my son,” said his secretary at consulting firm Quantum Leap, Eva Brunetti of Lago, Fla.
“I love this man like a brother,” said Dr. David Singer, a medical profession consultant and former boss of Detelich.
Conti allowed Detelich to self-report to prison.
Authorities will notify him in about five weeks of the reporting deadline and location of where to report, and will have about a week after he receives the notification to show up.
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Photos
Brent J. Detelich