Arkansas doctor guilty in bombing that injured medical board chair

A federal jury has found Randeep Mann, MD, guilty on all but one count related to the February 2009 bombing of Arkansas State Medical Board Chair Trent P. Pierce, MD, who nearly died in the blast.

Among other charges, jurors found Dr. Mann, an internist from London, Ark., guilty of using a "weapon of mass destruction" in the bombing that targeted Dr. Pierce. That count alone carries a potential life sentence, said Cherith Beck, public information officer for the Eastern District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney's Office, which brought the case against Dr. Mann. The verdict was delivered Aug. 9.

Dr. Mann was found guilty of illegally possessing 98 unregistered grenades but not guilty of possessing an unregistered shotgun.

"I'm very happy that we seem to have some closure at this point about who has done this," said radiologist Scott Ferguson, MD, a close friend and neighbor of Dr. Pierce who served as a family spokesman while the doctor was hospitalized. "I know there's some comfort for the Pierces in the jury's verdict, and I think we'll all sleep better tonight."

The Feb. 4, 2009, explosion of a grenade strapped to a spare tire in Dr. Pierce's West Memphis, Ark., driveway burned 18% of the physician's body. After multiple surgeries to remove shrapnel, the doctor's face is still marked by bits of rubber tire embedded in his skin. Dr. Pierce lost his left eye, his sense of smell and much of the hearing in his left ear, and fractured an arm and a leg.

Possible motive

The medical board revoked Dr. Mann's legal authority to prescribe narcotics in 2006 after 10 of his patients fatally overdosed. Federal prosecutors argued that Dr. Mann targeted Dr. Pierce for his role in the decision, as well as a medical board investigation into whether Dr. Mann was continuing to prescribe narcotics illegally.

His wife, Sangeeta "Sue" Mann, was found guilty of obstructing justice and faces a potential 20-year sentence. She is free on bond while Dr. Mann remains in jail until sentencing, at a date yet to be announced.

Blake Hendrix, Dr. Mann's defense attorney, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the government's case was circumstantial and said he planned to file an appeal. Hendrix did not respond to an American Medical News interview request by this article's deadline.

In 1997, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee appointed Dr. Pierce to the medical board. Dr. Pierce's term as chair ends Dec. 31, 2012.

After the jury verdict on Aug. 9, no one answered the phone at Dr. Pierce's family practice in West Memphis. Dr. Pierce continues to see patients and fulfill his duties as medical board chair, Dr. Ferguson said.

"It's a real testament to [Dr. Pierce]," Dr. Ferguson said. "I've heard him say, 'If I don't do my job, if I don't take care of my patients, if I don't continue to work in the manner that I was, then I've lost and we've let someone else win.' He's had the determination and conviction and faith throughout this whole ordeal. That's what's sustained him and makes him my hero."