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Dr. Perry's license suspended in Kentucky |
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Written by Greg Bird
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Friday, 27 November 2009 |
A Whitley City Doctor, under fire for allegedly trading drugs for sex in Tennessee, has had his license to practice medicine suspended in Kentucky as a result of a continuing investigation.
A Whitley City Doctor, under fire for allegedly trading drugs for sex in Tennessee, has had his license to practice medicine suspended in Kentucky as a result of a continuing investigation.
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure issued an Emergency Order of Suspension for Dr. Larry E. Perry Friday morning, November 20, after investigators met with the Doctor in his office in Whitley City.
After the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners suspended Dr. Perry’s license in Tennessee on November 3rd, the KBML began their own investigation into the accusations.
Using information gathered from the TBML’s investigation, the Kentucky Board concluded that there is “probable cause to believe this physician’s practice constitutes a danger to the health, welfare and safety of patients or the general public.”
The order noted that the Board took the actions based on evidentiary findings from the Tennessee report, stating: “If there is proof that a physician has violated a provision of the Kentucky Medical Practice Act in one set of circumstances, the Board may infer that the physician will similarly violate the Medical Practice Act when presented with a similar set of circumstances. Similarly, the Board concludes that proof of a set of facts about a physician’s practice presents representative proof of the nature of that physician’s practice in general.”
According to the Kentucky complaint, Dr. Perry has 30 days to respond to the allegations in the complaint, and failure to respond may be taken as an admission of the charges.
A hearing on the Kentucky complaint has been scheduled on March 9-11, 2010 in Louisville.
Dr. Perry did not attend a hearing on the Tennessee charges in Nashville.
The Voice has obtained a copy of the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure’s Emergency Order of Suspension as well as a detailed investigative report from the Tennessee Department of Health and Tennessee Bureau of Investigations that lead to the suspension.
TBI Special Agent Margaret Chuinard initiated a four-month undercover investigation into allegations of Dr. Perry’s actions.
The special agent began posing as a patient looking for narcotic prescriptions.
“The undercover agent ‘made no bones about what she wanted right from the start,’” the report states. “On her first visit she asked for Hydrocodone; she continued asking for them. Dr. Perry did not prescribe Hydrocodone on the first visit. He later prescribed an increasing quantity of the narcotic on the last three visits. The investigation was terminated because Dr. Perry became overly cautious.”
After the initial undercover investigation, Special Agent Chuinard requested pharmacy data from Tenn Care for the first six months of 2008, focusing on “frequent flyers” (patients who got narcotic prescriptions on multiple visits) and “one-timers (those who visited once and obtained a narcotic prescription and never returned.)
From those reports several patients were selected for interviews.
According to the report, 21 victims and seven witnesses were interviewed during the course of the investigation with the majority of them providing lurid details concerning Dr. Perry’s actions in the examination room.
Several of the victims interviewed described inappropriate touching occurring during examinations. The majority of the testimony concerned Dr. Perry sitting in a rolling chair and placing his genital area in close contact with the patient’s legs. Several describe the doctor placing his hands on their inner thighs and “rocking his hips back and forth” while making “strange noises.”
The victims stated that nurses or other people were sometimes present during these instances, but many times they were alone in the room with the doctor with the door locked.
Several victims described Dr. Perry asking them very personal information regarding their sexual history, often following them up with inappropriate comments.
None of the victims claimed to have had sexual intercourse with Dr. Perry, but one did admit to performing oral sex on him on at least three visits in exchange for an increase in her xanax prescription. At least two of the victims said the doctor was trying to instigate a sexual encounter, but they refused to comply.
One victim described the doctor hugging and kissing her as she got up to leave.
“I was going through a real bad time in my life and he knew it,” she stated. The victim described the doctor placing her hands on his penis and fondling her breasts and asking her if she wanted to lie down on a bed in the back.
One victim even stated that Dr. Perry had asked her for a date and another stated he had called her residence on several occasions.
Several witnesses, many described as former employees, stated they often felt uncomfortable in the office and reported inappropriate actions toward them or female patients.
Dr. Perry originally maintained a practice in Oneida, but closed his Tennessee office this past summer, before joining his father’s practice in Whitley City.
Perry was licensed to practice medicine in Tennessee in 1991 and in Kentucky in 1999. According to the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, Perry attended the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in the Netherlands Antillies and based in Coral Gables, Florida.
The possibility of criminal charges in Tennessee and Kentucky exists as the TBI is continuing to conduct an investigation into the situation.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations is asking anyone with potential information concerning these allegations to call 1-800-824-3463. |
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