Naturopath pleads guilty

Trial ends soon after prosecutors uncover new evidence he lied

Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, February 2, 2006

The trial of a Wheat Ridge naturopathic practitioner ended abruptly Wednesday when he pleaded guilty after prosecutors uncovered new evidence that he had lied about his background under oath.

Brian O'Connell, 37, faced numerous counts of practicing medicine without a license, theft and manslaughter in the death of a terminally ill 19-year-old cancer patient.

He pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, practicing medicine without a license, theft, assault and perjury. He faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced March 27. The judge could also consider probation.

The surprise guilty plea took place after prosecutors discovered Tuesday evening that O'Connell had lied about having a master's degree when he testified as an expert witness about blood-alcohol levels in a 1999 Jefferson County attempted murder trial.

Jury selection resumed in the trial Wednesday morning, but O'Connell pleaded guilty shortly before noon.

"I'm happy," said David Flanagan, whose son, Sean, died after undergoing treatment with O'Connell in December 2003.

Prosecutors blamed Flanagan's death on complications from "photo luminescence" treatments in which a small amount of blood is removed from a patient's body, exposed to ultraviolet light and then returned.

The charges concerned O'Connell's treatment of some patients, including a 17-year-old girl who was rushed to the hospital after she went into cardiac arrest during a treatment at his office. Other charges stemmed from his use of a corrosive salve to treat a 55-year-old cancer patient, who was hospitalized with open sores on his body.

O'Connell's attorneys, Rick Jaffe and Malcolm Seawell, had planned a defense in which they intended to show the safety of O'Connell's unconventional therapies.

An unusual series of events led to the last-minute guilty plea, said prosecutor George Brauchler.

Prosecutors discovered during a pretrial interview with O'Connell's former employer, Forensic Laboratories, that O'Connell had testified as an expert witness before he was fired, Brauchler said.

An old employment file listed a Jefferson County attempted-murder case prosecuted by now District Attorney Scott Storey.

Tuesday evening, prosecutors found a transcript of O'Connell's testimony. While summarizing his background, O'Connell stated that he held a master's degree.

Prosecutors notified O'Connell's defense that they planned to file a new perjury charge.

Jaffe said O'Connell chose to plead guilty not only because of the new perjury charge but because of a ruling made Tuesday by Jefferson County District Judge Margie Enquist.

The judge said she would instruct the jurors that a person violates the Colorado Consumer Protection Act if he uses the title "doctor" without having a degree from an approved institution. O'Connell's correspondence school degree did not qualify.

"That was a very, very significant problem," Jaffe said. "He was not allowed to call himself doctor and we acknowledge that he did. For some jurors that's the end of the story."

Jaffe said the case was unusual.

"These were, by and large, a bunch of dying patients who were told to go home and die," he said, because conventional medicine could do nothing more for them.

"They went to O'Connell because he's different, he's doing alternative therapies that their regular doctors would never do," Jaffe said.

"They were buying hope," Seawell said.

Brauchler, however, said the case was about fraud. Prosecutors contended O'Connell deliberately misled patients about his credentials.