DrugBuyers.Com: Reporter accused of 'doctor shopping'

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/15/Tampabay/Reporter_accused_of__.shtml
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
Published April 15, 2004

TAMPA - WFTS-Ch. 28 investigative reporter Mike Mason was arrested Wednesday on charges that he visited numerous doctors in order to obtain multiple prescriptions for opiate-based painkillers.

The practice, known as "doctor shopping," is a third-degree felony in Florida, punishable by as much as five years in prison.

Mason, 31, faces eight counts of obtaining drugs from a physician by withholding information.

Investigators say he made at least 34 visits to 14 different doctors between November 2002 and November 2003. They say he obtained prescriptions for at least 2,400 painkiller pills, such as hydrocodone and OxyContin.

"He'd visit two or three or four doctors in a month," said Rick Morera, spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which conducted the investigation. "One (doctor) didn't know what the other was prescribing."

Wednesday, Mason's attorney suggested that Tampa police officials started an investigation of him as a way of retaliating against Mason's critical reporting.

In December, Mason was sued by three Tampa Police Department officers after he aired a story that suggested favoritism within the TPD promotion process. The officers claimed the story invaded their privacy and portrayed them in a false light.

"The Tampa Police Department's contempt for Mr. Mason is publicly known," Mason's attorney Steve Romine, who works with lawyer Barry Cohen's firm, said Wednesday. "There are aspects about this case that smack of retaliation. There was nothing Mike Mason did that would have caused anyone to question his medical treatment to prompt such an investigation."

Because of the strained relations between Mason and TPD, the department asked the FDLE to investigate the case, Morera said.

"I think TPD requested we get involved in the investigation because they wanted an outside, independent, unbiased third party to look at it," he said. "If anything, they did everything in their power (to be fair)."

In the station's own report about Mason's arrest Wednesday, WFTS-Ch. 28 reporter Laura McElroy asked TPD spokesman Capt. Bob Guidara whether the investigation was an act of revenge. Could a reporter investigate wrongdoing within the police department, she asked, without fear of retribution?

"We didn't target Mike Mason," Guidara said. "The information was brought to us."

Romine said Mason has been diagnosed with a serious back problem that has afflicted him in recent years. It was exacerbated by weightlifting and by being struck by a car while riding a bicycle, he said.

"Mr. Mason has a legitimate medical condition which requires him to take these prescription medications," Romine said. "There's no evidence he was selling prescription drugs, and there's no evidence he was abusing them or operating in an impaired state. He's not an addict."

Station officials declined Wednesday to talk about the details of the case or the status of Mason's employment.

Wednesday's arrest was not Mason's first encounter with the law. His license once was suspended for six months after he was found guilty in October 1994 of driving under the influence in Miami-Dade County, where he graduated from college and started his television career.

Mason turned himself in to the jail on Orient Road early Wednesday afternoon. He later was released after posting $16,000 bail.

- Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.