Wednesday
Inestlay, April 12, 2000
NATION
Arringt
THE BATTALION
Page 13
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Aggie mom Karen Barnes shops at a boutique featuring an
s ic draft anabstshavc Easter display with stuffed rabbits at the Blue Bonnet Festival on
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But no one really knows.
Tests dear man of rape, implicate brother
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When Clyde and Mario
Charles left a house 19 years ago, they said they hitch
hiked in different directions down a road in the heart of
south Louisiana’s bayou country.
Their lives — like their paths — went in opposite
directions that night.
Clyde Charles was accused of raping a nurse whose
car had broken down a short distance away. He was con
victed and spent most of the next two decades in prison.
Mario Charles was not charged in the crime.
Clyde Charles consistently protested his innocence
and pushed for DNA testing once the technology be
came available. He got help from New York-based
lawyers and PBS’ “Frontline” investigative TV series.
In December, Clyde, now 47, was released from the
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola after DNA tests
showed he could not have committed the crime.
Less than four months later, the brothers’ paths have
crossed again: Authorities say the same DNA tests that
Clyde Charles had requested have now implicated Mario.
And on Monday, three days after Mario Charles’ ar
rest in Virginia for the rape, the sheriff of Terrebonne
Parish accused Clyde Charles of knowing his brother
committed the crime.
Clyde Charles “may be innocent of the rape, but 1
feel he knew about his brother raping that woman,” said
“There's no way in the
world he was covering up
for his brother. You don't go
about saying your brother
did it if you can't prove it"
— Barry Scheck
defense attorney
Sheriff Jerry Carpenter. “This thing could have been re
solved 20 years ago if he would have stepped forward.”
Former O.J. Simpson defense attorney Barry
Scheck, whose New York-based Innocence Project at
Cardozo Law School helped free Clyde Charles,
ridiculed Larpenter’s claim.
“There’s no way in the world he was covering up for
his brother,” Scheck said in a telephone interview. “You
don’t go about saying your brother did it if you can’t
prove it.”
Carpenter said there is enough evidence to have
Clyde Charles booked with obstruction of justice, but
added that it might not be productive to pursue a charge
on a crime carrying a six-month maximum jail sentence.
“Clyde has served his time,” he said.
Clyde Charles was age 28 when he was sentenced
to life in prison for raping a woman near a house where
the Charles brothers had been drinking in Houma, La.,
about 40 miles southwest of New Orleans.
A flat tire had stranded the 26-year nurse nearby,
and she said a man came up behind her, punched her
in the face and raped her. A deputy who found her ly
ing on the ground had seen Clyde Charles about a
mile away. The nurse identified him as her attacker.
Doctors admit to
falsifying insurance
News in Brief
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egal immigrants
^ LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fifteen
llegal immigrants from China have
seen detained after authorities
p ound them crammed in a filthy
prgo container unloaded from a
No. 8 Carmen Santa( shi ? h ar ™ n e fr °T H ° n ! K ° ng ; „
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rompete next at tk Harbor from the ship dubbed Pres-
>v and Sendai- on (HeT 16 " 1 Adanls - Virginia Kice,
spokesperson for the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS).
found in container
INS officers had to put on haz
ardous materials gear before en
tering the container.
Smugglers rigged the 10-by-30-
foot metal container with escape
hatches and an elaborate ventila
tion system using fans and car
batteries for the two-week trip
across the Pacific Ocean.
The container was supposed
to contain toys, said John Pacht-
ner, spokesperson for American
President Lines.
CHICAGO (AP) — More than a
third of doctors surveyed nationwide
admit deceiving insurance companies to
help patients get the care they need.
Their tactics include: exaggerating
the severity of an illness to help patients
avoid being sent home early from the
hospital; listing an inaccurate diagnosis
on bills; and reporting nonexistent
symptoms to secure insurance coverage.
In a random mailed survey of 720
doctors nationwide in 1998, 39 percent
said they had used at least one of those
tactics “sometimes” or more often
within the preceding year.
The results ’were published in
Wednesday’s Journal of the American
Medical Association.
Thirty-seven percent said their pa
tients “sometimes” or more often asked
them to deceive insurers. More than a
quarter — 28.5 percent — said it is nec
essary to “game” the system to provide
high-quality care.
Of the doctors who reported using de
ceitful practices, 54 percent said they did
so more often than in the past.
“As pressures to control health care
costs increase, it is likely that manipu-
I
Aggieland
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lating reimbursement systems will in
crease,” wrote the researchers, led by
Dr. Matthew K. Wynia of the AMA’s
Institute for Ethics in Chicago.
“Health plans in which the use of
these tactics is common should care
fully review their rules and procedures
and work with physicians to reduce the
perceived need for covert advocacy.”
Dr. Charles M. Cutler, chief medical
officer for the American Association of
Health Plans, which represents more
than 1,000 HMOs and other insurance
plans, said doctors who deceive insurers
are “essentially allowing people to get
benefits for which they haven’t paid.”
“The people who pay for that are
everybody else who’s paying for the
premiums,” Cutler said. He said the
practice will ultimately backfire and
cause costs to rise.
A smaller survey published in the
AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine
last year found that more than half of
doctors approved the use of deceitful
practices with insurance companies.
The authors of the latest survey said
theirs is the first to report what doctors
are actually doing.
Physicians’ falsehoods
Responding to pressures in the health care system, some doctors
who answered a 1998 nationwide survey admitted to deceiving
insurance companies to get proper care for their patients.
How frequently, if ever, in the last year have you had to ...
... exaggerate the severity of a patient’s condition to help them avoid
an early discharge from the hospital?
Never 43%— 1 Rarely 30%
Sometimes 24%—J Often 3%
Very often 1 %-
... change a patient’s official (billing) diagnosis to help them secure
coverage for a needed treatment or service?
Never 48%— 1 Rarely 30% ^ Sometimes 19%—^ Often 3%—'
Very often 1%-
... report signs or symptoms that a patient did not actually have to help
the patient secure coverage for a needed treatment or service?
Never 71%— 1 Rarely 19% 1 Sometimes 8%— 1 Often 1%— 1
Very often 1%
Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
Source: Journal of the American Medical Association
AP
» %
N
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