Miami doctor charged in Oxy painkiller case agrees to give up medical license before trial

Last year, a Miami doctor got off lightly when he reached a settlement agreement with the Florida Board of Medicine for prescribing large doses of the addictive painkiller Oxycodone to a patient.

Dr. Daniel Alberto Carpman paid a fine of $7,500 and administrative costs of about $10,000. A “letter of concern” was also placed in his file at the state Department of Health, but he was still allowed to practice medicine.

Now, the 70-year-old Carpman is in much deeper trouble.

Arrested last week, Carpman pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a conspiracy to distribute and dispense thousands of Oxycodone pills to patients and was granted a $250,000 bond with strict conditions. They include giving up his state license to practice medicine, paying a $37,500 nonrefundable premium, confinement to his Brickell Avenue highrise condo, GPS electronic monitoring, and turning over his U.S. and Argentine passports.

Carpman, who was seated in a wheelchair and spoke Spanish, told Magistrate Judge Melissa Damian Visconti that he should qualify for a bond and was not a flight risk, saying that he had only traveled regularly to Argentina and Chile to see family members.

“If you look at my record, I don’t even have a speeding ticket,” Carpman told the judge.

Although Carpman is charged alone, his case is linked to a network of about 10 people implicated in a massive Miami-Dade painkiller pill-mill ring that unlawfully sold millions of dollars’ worth of Oxycodone, the generic name for the highly addictive opioid, according to court records and federal prosecutors. Almost all of those defendants, including a Hialeah doctor, already pleaded guilty and were sentenced to various prison terms.

However, a U.S. Health and Human Services agent faces trial by himself at the end of the month after pleading not guilty to charges of conspiring to distribute Oxycodone while protecting members of the pill-mill racket with tips on enforcement actions. A few cooperating members of that ring are likely to testify against the agent, Alberico Ahias Crespo, who is also charged with witness tampering and obstruction of justice.

After Wednesday’s arraignment and bond hearing, Carpman’s defense attorney, Peter Butlien, said he could not comment about the case because he was still reviewing it and meeting with family members. Some attended Wednesday’s hearing.

The Carpman indictment, filed by lead federal prosecutor Christopher Clark, accuses the doctor of operating a pain management clinic, Donate Medical Center, on Coral Way in Miami and illegally distributing and dispensing Oxycodone between September 2018 and March 2023 in a conspiracy that highlights four prescriptions of 380 30 mg tablets for three different patients.

The indictment accuses Carpman of distributing and dispensing “a controlled substance [Oxycodone] through prescriptions that were issued without a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting outside the usual course of professional practice.”

The indictment also mentions other defendants convicted in a related Oxycodone conspiracy case: Yandre Trujillo Hernandez and Jorge Diaz Gutierrez, who pleaded guilty and were sentenced to about six years. Trujillo’s partner, Anais Lorenzo, also pleaded guilty in that case and received three years in prison. The HHS agent, Crespo, charged in that case, stands trial on May 30.

“There is not a scintilla of evidence that he was involved with any Oxycodone distribution,” Crespo’s defense lawyer, Jose Quinon, said in a prior interview. “There is no evidence that Al obstructed justice or prevented an investigation” from going forward.

The Crepso indictment and other court records note that Trujillo, Diaz and Lorenzo distributed Oxycodone prescribed by a Hialeah doctor who ran two pain management clinics, including West Medical Office. Dr. Rudolph Gonzalez-Garcia, charged in a separate healthcare fraud conspiracy case, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Four other defendants were also charged in his case, including three who pleaded guilty and served short prison terms. One suspect is still at large, according to court records.