Former Boothbay Harbor Physician’s Assistant Richard “Dik” Brackett collapsed in court Monday as a judge was listening to his lawyer argue he should not go to jail.
Brackett, 66, convicted on seven charges on June 17, was sitting at a table as his lawyer David J. Van Dyke, began his sentencing argument trying to convince Justice Andrew Horton not to put the former Army Special forces medic in prison.
Earlier, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Bogue urged Horton to jail Brackett, 66, for three years, in addition to probation and a $2200 restitution payment to the Maine Care Program. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years
“I was starting my argument when the court security officer stopped me,” said VanDyke.
“I looked over and Brackett was ghostly white and rigid in his chair. He started to fall out of his chair and the male security officer held him while the female security officer grabbed his legs and they laid him on the carpet,” he said.
As the defendant lay on the floor, court security officers cleared the courtroom, however Brackett’s wife of 45 years, Brigitte, rushed to his side.
An ambulance and rescue squad was called to the courtroom and Brackett appeared to be feeling better and waved to his supporters as he was wheeled out of the Sagadahoc courthouse on a gurney. He was seen chatting with ambulance attendants when he was loaded into the vehicle.
After Brackett was revived in the court room, his lawyer said his color returned and he seemed to be recovering, his lawyer said.
He was taken to Midcoast Hospital in Brunswick to be evaluated, the lawyer said.
Van Dyke said Brackett had a quadruple bypass heart operation about four years ago and is a diabetic. “He is under a lot of stress,” said the lawyer.
Bogue said Justice Horton said he had some time next week or in December when he could listen to the rest of the lawyer’s arguments and pronounce sentence.
“Clearly Brackett could not continue,” she said.
Before the Brackett collapse, Bogue argued he was a “gate keeper” a health care professional who took advantage of a most vulnerable person, a drug addict.
Although Brackett testified he had not committed a crime, Bogue argued “clearly the jury did not accept his story.”
She said his story that he put video tape cameras in the rooms he rented to tenants’ “most private areas” showed he thought he was above the law and (standards of) common decency.”
Brackett, was convicted of seven charges stemming from an investigation into allegations he was selling, and trading high-powered painkillers for sex.
Brackett, who denied the charges, has been free on $3,000 bond for three and a half years.
Defense lawyer David J. VanDyke of Lewiston, has said the verdict may well be appealed.
After 15 hours of deliberation over three days, the jury convicted him of trafficking in controlled prescription drugs, a Class B felony, by selling Vicodin, a narcotic painkiller, to a patient, Lhea Sellick. He was also convicted of engaging a prostitute by trading sex for pills and theft by deception. Some of the transactions were secretly recorded by law enforcement officers.
In addition, he was convicted of four counts of violating the privacy of his tenants by secreting video cameras inside clock radios placed in their bedrooms and a bathroom. He told jurors during seven and a half hours on the witness stand that the cameras were installed to catch thieves.
Brackett, a retired Army medic who wears a pin indicating he had been awarded the Silver Star, operated a walk-in health clinic in Boothbay Harbor.
He was arrested in July 2006, the day after a search warrant was served on his home, his office and his car, by agents from the Maine Attorney General’s health care crimes unit.
The agents acted after informants alleged Brackett was selling narcotics/narcotic prescriptions for sex.
Theft by Deception, a Class C felony, alleges that from July 2, 2005 till June 6, 2006, Brackett obtained more than $1000 from the Maine Care Program by submitting false claims when he did not provide the service claimed or that he was not entitled to be reimbursed.
On Sept. 12, 2006, Brackett voluntarily agreed to immediate and permanent revocation of his medical license and agreed he shall never again apply for a physician’s assistant’s license. That information was forwarded to all state medical licensing boards.
