In early December, an
individual was sentenced to a thirty-year term in State Prison that
unfortunately seems far too light. This
is the matter of Robert R. Courtney, a pharmacist. Well, a former pharmacist.
Mr. Courtney was sentenced to the maximum term in prison for his crimes,
as he was convicted of diluting chemotherapy drugs for thousands of cancer
patients. At the sentencing, the judge
listened to many grief-stricken family members talking about how the greed of
Mr. Courtney cost them days, weeks, months, or years with their loved
ones. The presiding judge told
Mr. Courtney that, “Your crimes are a shock to the civilized
conscience. They are beyond
understanding.” That’s for sure. How do you understand something like
that? How do you forgive or move past
something like that?
Mr. Courtney’s response: “I
have committed a terrible crime that I deeply and severely regret . . . I wish
I could change everything.” The time
for people to consider their behavior is before they do it, not afterward when
they get caught. When I was a child, my father used to call these
“crocodile tears.” They are easy to
gush after harmful behavior is perpetrated, but it would be nice if the
individual would consider his behavior before doing whatever he does.
The motive here,
acknowledged by Mr. Courtney was greed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney, Gene Porter, who prosecuted this case stated
that Mr. Courtney took from the patients who came to see him, their hope,
their life, and their quality of life. It
is almost inhuman to try to picture people taking chemotherapy drugs and the
disappointment that they suffered when the drugs did not do what the patients
hoped, or what the family members hoped.
This monster of a human being took away life, took away hope, increased
pain, and increased peoples’ grief.
In addition to the
thirty-year sentence, Mr. Courtney was also ordered to pay 10.4 million dollars
in restitution. I hope he has it.
At sentencing, U.S.
District Court Judge Ortrie Smith listened to relatives of the now-deceased
patients who were clients of Mr. Courtney, and got to hear how the now-deceased
patients reacted when they learned that the drugs with which they were treated
were diluted by Mr. Courtney. At least
those that were still alive at the time got to learn this.
Mr. Courtney was arrested
in August of 2001, and in February of last year, he pleaded guilty to diluting
the cancer drugs taxon and gemzar. It
is known that he diluted 158 chemotherapy doses for thirty-four patients of one
Kansas City doctor. In his plea
agreement, Mr. Courtney admitted and acknowledged that he has been diluting
drugs since 1992. Since 1992! He acknowledged that this covered
approximately 4200 patients, 400 doctors, and 98,000 (!) prescriptions. Is thirty years the best we could do for
this murderer?
It seems that Mr. Courtney
would make approximately $800.00 on one dose of gemzar by significantly
diluting the prescription.
The prosecutor in this case
has indicated that Mr. Courtney was not charged with murder, for while his
behavior in all likelihood, hastened some deaths and caused others, murder
would be difficult to prove. Mr.
Courtney has stated that he had a $600,000.00 tax bill to pay, and $333,000.00
that he had pledged to his church. I
cannot help but think that his church would have been happier to not have the
money obtained by these extraordinarily ill-begotten means.
In short, Robert Courtney
is an animal in the truest sense of the word.
He has no conscience, and he clearly should be spending the rest of his
life in prison.
In my psychotherapy
practice, I see a number of teen-agers, and if they have problems with
behavior, and frankly, even if they don’t, I try to get them to consider
consequences before taking actions.
Actions are going to have consequences, and if the consequences are
considered before the actions are taken, there is a better chance that the
actions will be appropriate. It has
been my experience that with young people, it is sometimes difficult to get
them past the feeling of immediate gratification they anticipate will come
their way from the behavior in which they want to indulge. They don’t
think it through. I believe that
the concept of thinking through one’s behavior is an extraordinarily important one,
and if done more often, would keep people from behaving in ways that they would
regret. This leads me back to Mr.
Courtney, who says that he deeply and severely regrets his behavior. BIG DEAL!
Who does that help? It doesn’t
bring back lives, it doesn’t help the relatives, and it is, in effect,
meaningless. For those who believe in
the existence of heaven and hell, Robert R. Courtney is heading south.
Dr. Charles J. Unger is a criminal defense attorney
in the Glendale law firm of Flanagan, Booth & Unger, and a therapist at the
Foothill Centre for Personal and Family Growth. Mr. Unger writes a bimonthly column on legal and psychological
issues. He can be reached at charlieunger @hotmail.com