One of the Firm’s signature cases, David Oscar Markus led the defense team to another first of its kind victory — not guilty verdicts across the board on 141 counts against a doctor charged in federal court with selling pain medications in a “pill mill” prosecution. 

After a month long trial, the jury acquitted on all counts in less than a half a day, and after they announced the verdict, the jury hugged the lawyers and client.  (Here’s the Sun-Sentinel article (pdf) and the Herald article (pdf)). Markus was able to show that this was not a pill mill at all. In addition to the acquittal, Markus uncovered prosecutorial misconduct and the federal judge heard two days of testimony from prosecutors and agents, after which the court ordered the government to pay Dr. Shaygan and his lawyers over $600,000.

 The Eleventh Circuit reversed the fee award, with several dissenting opinions, which generated a great deal of press including this National Law Journal article (pdf).  Since this case, the Firm is regularly consulted on cases involving doctors and pharmacists charged with cases involving pain medication such as oxycodone, oxycontin, hydrocodone, and so on. For example, the Firm recently represented the owner of Robert’s, a pharmacy chain in Florida, and currently represents a number of doctors. Both state authorities and the federal government have cast way too wide a net in the prosecution of doctors and pharmacists who are engaged in legitimate medical practice, and the Firm takes great pride in defending these cases. 

David recently spoke to other criminal defense lawyers on how to win pill-mill prosecutions in the Fall.

Pictured: Dr. Shaygan and David walking into court during trial.

Criminal antitrust case.

In a total victory for our client, David Oscar Markus along with Mona Markus successfully obtained the dismissal of two indictments against the Vice President of an airline.

The charges involved allegations of federal criminal antitrust laws violations by conspiring to fix fuel surcharge prices on air cargo shipments to and from the U.S. The team obtained a dismissal of the first indictment after demonstrating their client’s lack of participation in the conspiratorial meeting. With regard to the second indictment, the team filed a unique motion demonstrating that the VP was simultaneously an employee of another airline which meant that he was covered under the grant of immunity in that airline’s plea agreement.

The DOJ fought hard against the motion, filing 9 pleadings in opposition and calling multiple witnesses to testify in support of their position. After a two day evidentiary hearing, the Magistrate Judge wrote a 49-page order granting the motion to dismiss, and the District Court affirmed.

The Hidalgo case was part of a string of pre-trial dismissals that the Firm recently has obtained. Other cases include United States v. Brian Cooper (CEO of large company charged in two cases discussed below), State v. Rene Pedrayes (executive in RICO case discussed below), United States v. Juan Gomez (money laundering case discussed below), United States v. Mazen Salloum (gambling case discussed above) and State v. Jeffrey Lipman (a pain medication case, which was dismissed pre-trial).

Obtaining a not guilty verdict is rare.  Obtaining a dismissal pre-trial is even rarer. The creative and aggressive approach of the Firm has led to these unique results.