A former northwestern Indiana nose surgeon who spent five years on the run from fraud charges is arguing he’s served enough time in prison even before being sentenced.
Attorneys for Mark Weinberger say in federal court filings that he’s spent 34 months in prison, which falls in the sentencing guideline range of 30 months to 37 months.
Weinberger faces hundreds of malpractice lawsuits stemming from his Merrillville nose and sinus practice.
He was ordered in March 2010 to pay $13 million to relatives of Phyllis Barnes of Valparaiso. Weinberger treated Barnes for sinus problems but didn’t diagnose the advanced throat cancer that killed her.
He was arrested in December 2009 near Italy’s border with France as he hid on a snowy mountain as allegations mounted concerning his medical practice. Weinberger was brought back to the United States in early 2010.
Weinberger sued his malpractice insurance company, claiming it failed to properly defend him in hundreds of civil cases.
The Post-Tribune reported Mark Weinberger sought unspecified damages from Medical Assurance Co. The lawsuit alleges Medical Assurance used information garnered from Weinberger’s malpractice cases in its own lawsuit against Weinberger.
That lawsuit, filed in 2006, seeks to determine what role if any Medical Assurance owes in Weinberger’s cases.
Weinberger faces a court hearing Oct. 12 during which a judge could decide whether to accept his guilty plea on charges for billing insurance companies for procedures that weren’t needed or never performed.
The Post-Tribune reports prosecutors have asked for a sentence of about four years.
Such a sentence would likely mean little additional prison time for Weinberger. He disappeared during a 2004 trip to Greece and was captured in Italy in 2009.
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