While this page is about a scandalous affair involving Dr. Antero, it is not about the extramarital affair that Dr. Antero had (with a married man) when she was with her previous husband (Tuscaloosa dentist, Dr. Ferro), and during which she had very young children at home. The following is about a prescription drug scandal. For the sake of being clear, Dr. Antero was never charged with a crime. The aforementioned prescription drug scandal resulted in a 336-count indictment (all felonies) (see indictment file at the bottom of the page) — one charge was for conspiracy to distribute narcotics, 15 charges were for trafficking narcotics, 160 charges were for illegal possession of prescription drugs, and 160 charges were for prescription fraud.
Another podiatrist, Dr. Robinson, was charged in a 223-count indictment involving the previously mentioned prescription drug scandal.
Considering that Dr. Antero is the type of person whose greed prevented her from informing at least one of her patients that a better, less invasive surgical option existed before she performed a more invasive procedure, whose greed and hubris caused her to perform surgery that she was not competent to perform, who attempted to manipulate at least one of her patients into accepting a surgical outcome that was far worse than the original condition, and who cheated on her husband with a married man when she had small children at home, I think it’s fair to ask if Dr. Antero was directly involved in trafficking prescription drugs. Dr. Antero’s ex-husband was a dentist, so his divorcing her was probably quite the financial blow to her.
Was Dr. Antero so strapped for cash that she was involved in trafficking prescription drugs to make money? I don’t know, but Dr. Antero was greedy enough to not tell me about a better surgical option to fix my condition because she wasn’t trained to perform that procedure, and she was greedy enough to perform a surgery that she wasn’t competent to perform. I’ve presented the facts below, and I’ll let the reader draw his or her own conclusion.
It’s my understanding that, in 2013, Dr. Antero rented office space to a drug addict (David Heath Griffin). If you believe Dr. Antero, Mr. Griffin stole some of her prescription pads, then over the course of an entire year he went on a massive drug binge — he had 160 prescriptions filled for Hydrocodone (Vicodin/Lortab), Amphetamine (Adderall), Oxycodone (Oxycontin), Zolpidem (Ambien), Clonazepam (Klonopin), Diazepam (Valium), Hydromorphone (Dilaudid), and Alprazolam (Xanax). Not only did Mr. Griffin go on a drug binge, but he also engaged in drug trafficking. Indeed, 15 of his charges were for trafficking Oxycodone — 14 charges were for trafficking at least 56 grams, and one charge was for trafficking between 28 grams and 56 grams. That means that Mr. Griffin trafficked AT LEAST 812 grams* — almost a kilo — of Oxycodone, which means that Mr. Griffin trafficked AT LEAST 27,000 pills** of Oxycodone (see the math below). Those figures don’t even take into account the other drugs (listed above) that Mr. Griffin fraudulently obtained.
It bears repeating that Mr. Griffin’s prescription fraud went on for a little over a year! The fact that Mr. Griffin was doing any sort of business with Dr. Antero (by renting office space from her) could possibly be overlooked, although one must question the wisdom of giving a drug addict access to sensitive patient information, but the fact that Mr. Griffin managed to have so many fraudulent prescriptions filled for over a year makes me wonder how Dr. Antero managed to remain unaware of the situation for so long. While it is possible that Dr. Antero didn’t know that Mr. Griffin was a drug addict, my experience with addicts says otherwise. It’s been my experience that drug addicts are usually obvious, and even if they can fool you in the short run, they can’t hide who they are for long — the desire for drugs is just too powerful for them.
Dr. Antero should have — before giving someone access to sensitive patient files — run a background check on Mr. Griffin. Had Dr. Antero run a simple background check on Mr. Griffin, she would have seen that he had an extensive criminal history (I ran a criminal history check on him, and I came back with 55 criminal events in Tuscaloosa County alone). At the very least, Dr. Antero is guilty of bad judgment, but based on my experience with Dr. Antero, she’s no stranger to bad judgment!
When most of us think about a doctor, we think of someone who’s a pillar of the community, not someone who associates with drug traffickers. Podiatrists are not physicians, so maybe we shouldn’t expect them to be pillars of their communities, but at the same time, it’s not unreasonable for us to expect them to steer clear of drug traffickers.
I’ll leave you with a parting question. Which scenario is more likely?
- Mr. Griffin had an arrangement to traffic narcotics with Dr. Robinson and Dr. Antero, but only Dr. Robinson was charged with a crime, or
- Mr. Griffin had an arrangement to traffic narcotics with only Dr. Robinson, while he decided to steal prescription pads from a different, completely innocent, podiatrist (Dr. Antero).
* Assuming the most conservative estimate possible, which is that for each of the charges of trafficking at least 56 grams of Oxycodone, Mr. Griffin trafficked exactly 56 grams, and for the solo charge of trafficking between 28 grams and 56 grams, he trafficked exactly 28 grams, you end up with (14 charges x 56 g) + (1 charge x 28 g) = 812 grams.
** Assuming Mr. Griffin trafficked 812 grams of Oxycodone, and that each pill was maximum pill size for the immediate-release version of the drug (which is what drug addicts prefer), you get (812 g x 1000 mg per g) divided by 30 mg per pill = 27,066.67 Oxycodone pills.