Metropolitan
The Dallas Morning News
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Luxury cars, homes all part of life for doctor investigated in patients' deaths
Some relatives say physician provided 'anything you wanted'
By Tanya Eiserer and Doug J. Swanson, Staff Writers
The doctor's Lakewood home is palatial, though it doesn't have the spectacular view of his place in New Mexico. That one offers a vista of the Jemez Mountains and the Santa Fe city lights.
But on those days the doctor is working, he's in Dallas. He must steer his way up his long, shaded driveway past his terraced gardens and make his commute to the poor side of town.
The trip to 2929 Martin Luther King Blvd takes about 10 minutes, but it's a long way from leafy, placid Lakewood. Dr. Daniel Maynard parks his luxury car - records show that he owns a Lincoln, a Mercedes and a Corvette - behind a fence topped with razor wire. At 8 a.m. the neon "open" sign above the front door of the Maynard Clinic comes on.
The procession begins. On a slow day, Dr. Maynard will see 100 patients. They wait for him in the shabby lobby. More stand on the stained rug in the cramped foyer, leaning against the dirty white wall or using the pay phone. Still others line up outside, waiting for the doctor's wife, Aino, to unlock the door and let them in. Then she locks the door behind them.
The clinic does not take appointments. It's a first-come, first-serve, and patients come from all over the area. Some sleep in the parking lot the night before to get a prime slot.
Dr. Maynard has a reputation of helping those who can't get help elsewhere. Cecil Armitage was one of those. He was an ex-con and a diesel mechanic with a love for painkillers, which Dr. Maynard prescribed for him. He died in March.
Tracie Bond was another. A paraplegic who craved narcotics, she died in November. On her bedside table was an empty bottle that once held morphine prescribed by Dr. Maynard. Delores Burton was a patient as well. Dr. Maynard prescribed Percodan for back pain. Her husband contends that years of using another painkiller destroyed her liver. She died in January.
Those three and eight other patients who died, were cited by local, state and federal authorities when they raided Dr. Maynard's clinic and house last week. Police seized loads of patient files, billing records, bank statements and personal documents. Sources say he had been under investigation for more than six months. Dr. Maynard has not been charged with any crime.
District Attorney Bill Hill said last week that the investigation could continue for months. Among the charges prosecutors may pursue are fraud, manslaughter and prescribing drugs without a valid medical purpose, according to a police affidavit.
The doctor's lawyer, James Rolfe said last week that Dr. Maynard had done nothing wrong. "No patient death is the result of any negligence on the part of Dr. Maynard," he said. Mr. Rolfe did not respond Friday to requests to interview his client.
Dr. Maynard, 57, came to Dallas not long after his 1973 graduation from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Missouri. The vice president for medical affairs at the college, a classmate of Dr. Maynard's, did not respond to request for comment. Dr. Maynard lists privileges at Dallas Southwest Medical Center. A hospital spokeswoman declined to comment.
The doctor has also held a clinical faculty appointment at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Such posts allow physicians to train students at their clinics. A university spokeswoman said records show that no medical students trained in Dr. Maynard's clinic.
Dr. Maynard began operating the South Dallas clinic in 1979, according to state records. The practice has apparently been financially rewarding. Dr. Maynard's Lakewood home is appraised for tax purposes at $834,210. His Santa Fe condo, in an upscale-gated community, is appraised at $418,460.
He also owns some rental properties in Dallas and the office building next to his clinic.
The patients
The clinic has been well known in South Dallas for the lines of patients who would gather outside often before dawn. "They would line up about 3 or 4 a.m.," said one health care worker who accompanied patients to the clinic. "You'd have all these wrecks, fights and near-riots." The clinic employed off-duty Dallas police officers to keep the peace in the parking lot.
Many of the patients, authorities believe, came only for narcotics prescriptions. One health care worker said some paid cash for injections of Demerol, an opium derivative. Bill Bryan, 44, a former schoolteacher from Grand Prairie, was a patient of Dr. Maynard's. He died in August 1995.
His sister, Patricia Bland, believes Dr. Maynard is at fault. Ms. Bland, who lives in Centralia, Ill., said her brother hurt his back in an auto accident in 1989 or 1990. A friend told Mr. Bryan that he went to Dr. Maynard, she said, because he could "go in there and get any kind of medication." Her brother began seeing Dr. Maynard, she said, and was soon hooked.
"I can remember one specific night that my brother's speech was so garbled you couldn't understand anything he said," Ms. Bland recalled. "I told him, 'Why don't you go to a different doctor?' He said, 'No, I can get anything I want from this guy.'"
The Armitage brothers, Harold and Cecil, made similar remarks before they died. Cecil had a forgery conviction and Harold had served a prison sentence for burglary. Cecil worked on trucks, and Harold drove them. Both liked painkillers. Both went to Dr. Maynard.
"This was the hip doctor," said Sandra Blackburn, their sister. "He was cool, and you could get anything you wanted."
The brothers told family members that they often could get drugs without being examined by Dr. Maynard during an office visit. Sometimes, they slept in the clinic parking lot just to be the first in line.
"When they went to him, I don't know who took what, where or when. But I know that they were both just totally messed up on these pills," Ms. Blackburn said.
In 2000, shortly after taking pain medications, Harold had a fatal traffic accident. He was 49.
Cecil was treated for a drug overdose in January. By February he was seeing Dr. Maynard again. He died in March at age 61. There were 27 bottles of prescription pills next to his body.
Authorities later discovered that November Dr. Maynard wrote 23 prescriptions for Cecil, including sedatives and narcotic painkillers.
"He's a drug dealer. He is a legal drug dealer versus the street drug dealer," Ms. Blackburn said of Dr. Maynard. "He gets away with it because he has the license.
'Needed pills'
Tracie Bond, a cosmetologist, left behind three children when she died last year in Rockwall at 46.
"She said she was in pain and needed the pills," said her mother, Mary Johnson. "I just didn't know what to do."
A longtime patient of Dr. Maynard's, Ms. Bond filled a prescription for painkillers and sedatives. One day later she had a one-car accident and was paralyzed. When her doctor at Parkland Memorial Hospital refused to refill her morphine prescription, she returned to Dr. Maynard, her mother said.
"She just kept getting more and more [prescriptions]," Ms. Johnson said. "She just became addicted."
She was found dead in her bedroom with an empty morphine bottle beside her.
"Even though Tracie went down there, he [Dr. Maynard] didn't have to give it to her," Ms. Johnson said. "I'd like them to take his license away so he can't kill anybody else." Last week the state froze Medicaid reimbursements claimed by Dr. Maynard. Authorities also believe the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners will soon move to suspend Dr. Maynard's license.
But the clinic was still accepting patients after the police raid last week. The neon "open" sign is expected to be on again Monday morning.
Staff writers Selwyn Crawford, Kim Horner, Holly Becka and Howard Swindle contributed to this report.
