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Tag: 2018 News

Three Indian Tribes Now Sue Opiate Drugmakers

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Three American Indian tribes in South Dakota have sued the country’s top opioid manufacturers and distributors, accusing them of concealing and minimizing the addiction risk in tribal communities that have been devastated by such drugs.

“The effect of opioids on South Dakota Tribes has been horrific,” said Brendan Johnson, the former U.S. Attorney for South Dakota, who filed the lawsuit along with Tim Purdon, the former U.S. attorney for North Dakota. “This epidemic has overwhelmed our public health and law enforcement services, drained resources for addiction therapy and sent the cost of caring for children of opioid-addicted parents skyrocketing.”

Three tribes – Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate – sued 24 manufacturers and distributors, including Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Allergan PLC, McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Corp. But the attorneys allege the opioid epidemic has wreaked havoc on all of South Dakota’s nine tribes.

The 106 page complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota alleges the opioid industry failed to comply with federal prescription-drug laws intended to prevent the diversion of prescription opioids and prevent their abuse. The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws, deceptive trade practices, and fraudulent and negligent conduct.

Kaelan Hollon, spokesperson for Teva Pharmaceuticals, released a statement saying the company is working to educate communities and health-care providers and comply with federal and state regulations. A Pharma spokesman said “we vigorously deny these allegations.” The company is “deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis, and … dedicated to being part of the solution,” its statement says.

Hundreds of cities, states and counties have filed lawsuits against opioid drug manufacturers and distributors, among them seven counties in West Virginia, which has the highest prescription drug overdose rate in the nation. In April, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma became the first tribe to do so.

Walmart, CVS and the other companies that were sued went to a federal judge in Oklahoma in June and argued that Cherokee tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over them. The judge has not ruled on whether the case will remain in tribal court or be transferred to U.S. District Court

Thus far no California workers’ compensation carrier, or self-insured employer has initiated litigation to recover for the long term costs of claims made by an addicted claimant. One workers’ compensation defense attorney, Nigel Scott Baker Esq.,reports that he is investigating the feasibility of filing litigation on behalf of California self-insured employers and carriers. He has a copy of many of the civil complaints filed in various venues against drugmakers, and is communicating with national attorneys involved in those cases.

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DOJ Enforcement Focus Shifts to Nonmedical Provider Fraud

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More nonmedical provider companies are finding themselves ensnared in health-care fraud lawsuits, and paying out multimillion-dollar settlements, as business interests clash with clinical priorities at the doctor’s office.

A recent settlement between the Department of Justice and Kool Smiles, a pediatric dental chain, for $23.9 million over alleged False Claims Act violations for the dental chain’s Medicaid claims is emblematic of this trend as it also involved the dental chain’s affiliate, dental management company Benevis, a nonprovider entity that also facilitates the purchase and sale of dental clinics.

The DOJ alleged Kool Smiles used a combination of bonus and disciplinary actions to push dentists to perform more procedures and obtain additional reimbursements, while ignoring concerns from its dentists about overutilization of treatments.

More FCA actions are focusing on nonprovider entities that are associated or transact business with health-care providers, according to health-care fraud attorneys who spoke with Bloomberg Law.

Daniel R. Miller, a shareholder with Berger & Montague PC in Philadelphia who represents whistleblowers in FCA litigation, told Bloomberg Law that the increase in nonprovider fraud scrutiny from investigators and whistleblowers “is driven by private equity finding profit centers in health care,” Miller said. These entities “treat health care like a retail store in a shopping mall instead of letting providers make decisions based purely on patients’ needs,” he said.

But while applying pressure or influence on affiliates to hit quotas and increase revenue is uncontroversial in many business settings, applying pressure on an affiliated medical provider to hit quotas or bill for certain procedures can run afoul of the FCA, even if the nonprovider entity isn’t the company submitting bills to Medicare or Medicaid.

Miller said that nonprovider entities “claim that they aren’t running afoul of the law because they aren’t directly making clinical decisions,” but if that nonprovider affiliate “set[s] revenue goals and quotas high enough, you incentivize clinicians to conduct medically unnecessary procedures.”

Hanging an FCA case on medical necessity alone can be tricky for the DOJ and whistleblowers, especially with recent court decisions that have cast some allegations of medically unnecessary care as simply differences of medical opinion. One federal trial court said allegations of medically unnecessary hospice claims to Medicare essentially amounted to differences in professional medical judgment between defendant AseraCare’s clinicians and the government’s expert witnesses.

The DOJ appealed the AseraCare decision and is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Defendants facing medical necessity allegations increasingly will couch these as ‘battle of the experts’ cases. These are the types of court fights the DOJ would rather avoid, particularly because the risk of bad case law is high.

Benevis took that exact approach in a statement concerning its settlement. Benevis characterized the substance of the allegations as “professional disagreements between qualified dentists in determining the appropriate level and cost of the care.” Benevis said it was “disappointed that reasonable disagreement between dentists can become a FCA case.”

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NCCI Publishes Medicare Set-Asides: 2018 Update

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Understanding MSA trends – and the CMS review process – can assist workers compensation carriers and administrators as they identify cost drivers. This NCCI 2018 research update builds on a September 2014 study that NCCI conducted on MSAs and is based on data from approximately 11,500 MSAs submitted to CMS between September 2009 and December 2015.

CMS’s processing times have declined since 2012 and more recently hit their lowest level since 2010. In 2015, the average MSA processing time was about 70 days, which is the lowest average processing time between 2010 and 2015. This is in sharp contrast to 2011 and 2012, when average processing times were much longer. Median processing times appear to be longer for the largest MSA submissions than for smaller MSA submissions.

Estimated future drug costs are the main reason for CMS requiring increases of MSA amounts. CMS generally requires larger percentage increases to MSAs when the submission amounts are smaller. For example, CMS has requested an average 51% increase when the submitted MSA is under $25,000, while it has only requested an average 6% increase when the submitted MSA exceeds $200,000. Across all sizes of submitted MSAs, estimates of future prescription drug costs for injured workers are the main reason that CMS requires increases.

The gap between approved and submitted MSAs appears steady between 2013 and 2015 mainly because of the decrease between approved and submitted prescription drug amounts. While the gap between approved and submitted amounts for Medicare Parts A and B amounts (covering hospital stays, office visits, and related services) appears stable between 2010 and 2015, the same could not be said for Part D amounts (covering prescription drug services). The gap between prescription drugs approved and submitted MSA amounts was rather large between 2010 and 2012, but has significantly decreased since then and appears to be stable since 2013. This stabilization is the main contributor to the steadiness in the overall MSA amounts between 2013 and 2015.

The larger the MSA, the larger the share of drug costs. Prescription drug shares typically increase as the MSA gets larger. MSA settlements above $100,000 are typically associated with more serious injuries, such as back injuries, limb or finger amputations, burns, or head trauma. Many of these claimants are experiencing chronic pain or depression, so it is not surprising that the majority of MSA settlement costs are for prescription drugs.

Most MSAs are for claimants who are Medicare-eligible at time of settlement. About 64% of claimants are eligible for Medicare, not because of age but because they have been on Social Security Disability for at least two years. Another 29% of claimants are eligible due to age, and about 7% are likely to become eligible within 30 months.

The largest percentage of MSA submissions occur four years after the work-related accident. Submissions gradually decrease after that, but it is not uncommon to have a submission 20 or 25 years after an accident. Very few MSAs are submitted in the same year as the accident.

Overall, MSAs represent more than 40% of total submitted workers compensation settlement costs. On average, 22% of the total settlement is for the portion of the MSA covering Medicare Part D (prescription drugs) and 20% is for the portion of the MSA covering Medicare Parts A and B (hospital stays, office visits, and related services). About 58% of the submitted total workers compensation settlement is for costs other than MSAs, typically including indemnity coverage, medical costs not covered by Medicare, and other expenses such as attorney fees.

More than half of MSA submissions involve an attorney. About 54% of the time, MSA claimants seek assistance from an outside attorney when establishing their MSA arrangements. About 46% do not. The involvement of outside legal counsel does not vary much based on whether the total submitted settlement amount is large or small.

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Building Owner Not Responsible for Death of Window Washer

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Television Center, Inc. (TCI) owns a three-story commercial building located in Hollywood, California. In 2011, TCI contracted with Chamberlin Building Services (CBS), a licensed contractor, to wash the building’s windows. Decedent Salvador Franco, worked as a supervisor/window cleaner for CBS.

CBS and its employees made all decisions about how the window-washing would be accomplished. The window-washing equipment used on the job was owned, inspected, and maintained by CBS.

It was CBS’s policy that two connectors were required when rappelling off a building: one primary line and one safety line. However, late in the morning of the first day of this contract, Franco attached his line to only a single connector – an angle iron bracket supporting the air conditioning unit on the roof, attached to a small piece of wood – which was not an acceptable anchor point. The bracket to which he attached his line failed, and Franco fell to his death.

Plaintiffs Luz Elena Delgadillo, Christian Franco, and Valeria Franco are the surviving wife and children, respectively, of Salvador Franco. Decedent’s family received workers’ compensation benefits following his death.

Plaintiffs sued TCI for negligence and negligence per se, alleging that decedent was fatally injured because TCI failed to install structural roof anchors,in violation of sections 7325 through 7332 of the Labor Code, and section 3286, subdivision (a)(4), of title 8 of the California Code of Regulations, giving rise to causes of action for negligence and negligence per se.

TCI moved for summary judgment, contending that plaintiffs’ suit was barred by Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 (Privette) and subsequent cases. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment for TCI.

The Court of Appeal affirmed in the unpublished case of Delgadillo v. Television Center, Inc.

The “Privette doctrine” holds that when a property owner hires an independent contractor, the property owner is not liable for injuries sustained by the contractor’s employees unless the owner’s affirmative conduct contributed to the injuries.

In the present case, the undisputed evidence was that TCI did not direct how the window washing should be done nor otherwise interfere with the means or methods of accomplishing the work.

Accordingly, summary judgment was properly granted.

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SCIF – H-Wave® Settlement Opens Drug Free Pain Solution

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A six-year-old lawsuit against California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund, EK Health services – their utilization review vendor – and over a dozen utilization review physicians, recently settled. The case was filed by Electronic Waveform Lab, Inc., maker of H-Wave® – a physician prescribed drug-free medical device that helps those with chronic pain.

In 2011, Electronic Waveform Lab filed a lawsuit against EK Health and eleven Utilization Review Physicians alleging improper conduct in denying the H-Wave® Electrotherapy Device in Utilization Review. The lawsuit was amended to add State Compensation Insurance Fund and three additional Utilization Review Physicians as a party to the action and the case proceeded in federal court with a third amended complaint..

The case alleged, for the first time ever, a RICO statue violation accusing the groups of conspiring to deny physician treatment requests for the FDA cleared H-Wave® device, which can be prescribed by doctors as an alternative to opioids. The parties reached a confidential financial settlement in October 2017.

H-Wave®, a device made by Electronic Waveform Lab, Inc. of Huntington Beach, California, claimed that California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund, allegedly conspired with their contracted utilization review vendor and their independent contractor physicians who are responsible for approving or denying the use of any device for patients on a case-by-case basis, to deny all H-Wave® requests no matter what the medical necessity issues were.

As a result of the litigation settlement, State Fund, EK Health and EK Health’s Utilization Review Physicians will now recognize that Home H-Wave® is a drug-free treatment option, medically necessary in appropriate circumstances, and may be approved for use by injured patients pursuant to current evidence-based medicine and prevailing guidelines.

Authorization requests that prescribe Home H-Wave® should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, focusing on the needs of the injured patient.

This could be perceived as a big win for medical device makers which deal with denials from claims adjusters on a daily basis. With today’s widespread focus on the national opioid epidemic, this case is encouraging for patients and their physicians who are demanding alternative treatments for chronic pain.

H-Wave, a scientifically-reviewed device that uses electrotherapy to treat chronic pain and speed recovery from injury, has been used by physicians and their patients for more than 35 years.

Most patients who are prescribed H-Wave have been suffering with chronic pain for more than 500 days and have exhausted other conservative treatments, according to the company. Besides being prescribed by doctors for work-related injuries or pain, H-Wave is currently used by more than 70 professional sports teams. More than 200,000 thousand people have been prescribed H-Wave over the last 35 years.

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Another Link for CT Cancer Claims for Cell Phone Use?

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Male rats exposed to very high levels of the kind of radiation emitted by cellphones developed tumors in the tissues around their hearts, according to a draft report by U.S. government researchers on the potential health risks of the devices.

Female rats and mice exposed in the same way did not develop tumors, according to the preliminary report from the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), a part of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Reuters Health reports that the findings add to years of research meant to help settle the debate over whether cellphone radiation is harmful.

Although intriguing, the findings can not be extrapolated to humans, NTP scientists and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday. They noted that the animal studies were meant to test extreme exposures to cell phone radiation, and that current safety limits on cellphone radiation are protective.

However, the two 10-year, $25 million studies – the most comprehensive assessments of health effects and exposure to radiofrequency radiation in rats and mice to date – do raise new questions about exposure to the ubiquitous devices.

In the studies, about 6 percent of male rats whose entire bodies were exposed to the highest level of cell phone radiation developed schwannomas – a rare type of tumor – in nerve tissue near their hearts, while there were no schwannomas in animals that were not exposed to radiation.

“The intriguing part of this is the kind of tumors we saw were similar to tumors noted for quite some time in some epidemiological studies in heavy duty cellphone users,” John Bucher, a senior scientist with NTP, said in a telephone interview.

“Of course, these were in the nerves in the ear and next to the brain, but the tumor types were the same as we saw in the heart.”

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, noted that the studies were negative for common tumors.

“These draft reports are bound to create a lot of concern, but in fact they won’t change what I tell people: the evidence for an association between cellphones and cancer is weak, and so far, we have not seen a higher cancer risk in people,” he said in a statement on Twitter.

Brawley said if cellphone users are concerned about this data in animals they should wear an earpiece.

Unlike ionizing radiation such as that from gamma rays, radon and X-rays, which can break chemical bonds in the body and are known to cause cancer, radiofrequency devices such as cellphones and microwaves emit radiofrequency energy, a form of non-ionizing radiation.

The concern with this type of radiation is that it produces energy in the form of heat, and frequent exposure against the skin could alter brain cell activity, as some studies have suggested.

In the NTP study, rats and mice were exposed to higher levels of radiation for longer periods of time than what people experience with even the highest level of cellphone use, and their entire bodies were exposed all at once, according to the draft report.

Bucher said the effect likely only showed up in the male rats because they were larger, and likely absorbed more radiation than the female rats or mice.

Cellphones typically emit lower levels of radiation than maximum levels allowed, the draft report said.

Cellphone radiation quickly dissipates, so the risk, if any, would be to areas of the body in close proximity to the device emitting the radiation, Bucher said.

He said the findings are intended to help inform the design of future cell phone technologies. The study looked at only 2G and 3G frequencies, which are still commonly used for phone calls. It does not apply to 4G or 5G, which use different frequencies and modulation, he said.

NTP, a part of the National Institutes of Health, will hold an external expert review of its findings on March 26-28.

Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, head of the FDA’s radiological health division, said there is not enough evidence to say cellphone use poses health risks to people.

“Even with frequent daily use by the vast majority of adults, we have not seen an increase in events like brain tumors,” he said in a statement. “We believe the current safety limits for cellphones are acceptable for protecting the public health.”

Asked what the public should take from the study, Bucher said, “I wouldn’t change my behavior based on these studies, and I haven‘t.”

Nevertheless, the findings are potentially a concern for device makers, especially the world’s three biggest smartphone sellers, Apple Inc, Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and China’s Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL].

The CTIA, the trade association representing AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, Apple Inc, Sprint Corp, DISH Network Corp, and others, said on Friday that previous studies have shown cellphone RF energy emissions have no known heath risks.

“We understand that the NTP draft reports for its mice and rat studies will be put out for comment and peer review so that their significance can be assessed,” the group said.

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New York Jumps on Opiate Litigation Bandwagon

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New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that his office has filed a lawsuit against Insys Therapeutics, Inc., a company that sells a highly addictive fentanyl drug called Subsys.

Although Subsys was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat excruciating cancer-related breakthrough pain, the complaint alleges that Insys recklessly marketed the drug for much wider use, covering a much broader set of patients.

Additionally, the company allegedly engaged in a pattern of deceptive and illegal conduct by downplaying the drug’s risks of addiction, bribing doctors to prescribe the drug, and lying to healthcare providers to skirt their authorization process.

As a result, the Attorney General’s office is seeking penalties and disgorgement of all revenues accumulated during the period of misconduct—up to $75 million.

“At a time when the opioid epidemic was ravaging New York, Insys Therapeutics allegedly marketed a drug illegally by blatantly disregarding the grave risks of addiction and death that opioids pose,” said Attorney General Schneiderman.

“As we allege, Insys showed a wanton disregard for the law and the lives of New Yorkers and we will hold them accountable. My office will continue to fight the opioid crisis at every level and hold corporations that prioritize profits above New Yorkers’ health and wellbeing to account.”

In late 2012, the FDA approved Subsys for the specific, limited treatment of breakthrough cancer pain in opioid-tolerant patients. Its purpose was to provide relief to cancer patients who were suffering from excruciating pain.

Beginning in 2012, Insys allegedly ignored this limited approval and instead broadly targeted many types of providers and patients, and represented that the drug was appropriate for flares of mild pain. Insys also downplayed Subsys’ risk of addictiveness.

The company further directed its sales representatives to urge providers to prescribe Subsys in high doses, which were more expensive than lower doses. A 30-unit prescription of the lowest strength medicine costs approximately $700, while a prescription for the highest strength costs over $3500.

Additionally, the complaint alleges that Insys sales representatives called on medical offices that employed providers who had been arrested for illegal opioid distribution.

In furtherance of their deceptive and illegal scheme, Insys allegedly formed a business unit devoted solely to securing prior authorization from health plans for as many patients as possible. Insys trained its prior authorization staff to imply that patients had cancer pain, even when they did not.

Additionally, Insys allegedly bribed prescribers to write prescriptions for Subsys. The company paid certain providers between $3000 and $5000 to act as “speakers,” at sham promotional events and implored its sales staff to obtain a “return on investment” on those payments by increasing prescription numbers.

According to Insys’ latest quarterly filing published in November, the company has received subpoenas from at least 15 other states and has already settled lawsuits filed by Oregon, Illinois, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

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Salinas Urologists Resolve Kickback and Self Referral Claims

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Drs. Aytac Apaydin and Stephen Worsham, urologists based in Northern California, will pay $1.085 million to resolve allegations that they submitted and caused the submission of false claims to Medicare for image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) that was referred and billed in violation of the physician self-referral law (commonly known as the “Stark Law”) and the Anti-Kickback Statute.

Drs. Apaydin and Worsham own and operate Salinas Valley Urology Associates (SVUA) in Salinas, California. They also owned Advance Radiation Oncology Center (AROC), located in Salinas, California, which dissolved in 2016. IGRT is used to treat patients who are diagnosed with cancer, including prostate cancer patients.

The Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Law are intended to ensure that a physician’s medical judgment is not compromised by improper financial incentives.

The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration to induce referrals of items or services covered by federal health care programs, including Medicare. The Stark Law forbids health care providers from billing Medicare for certain services referred by physicians who have a financial relationship with the entity performing the service, unless an exception applies.

The United States alleged that Drs. Apaydin and Worsham knowingly caused eight urologists in Monterey and Salinas, California (the “Lessee Urologists”) to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Stark Law. Drs. Apaydin and Worsham allegedly solicited the Lessee Urologists to enter into lease agreements with AROC under which the Lessee Urologists could bill for, and thereby profit from, their referrals of IGRT performed at AROC.

The United States also alleged that Drs. Apaydin and Worsham violated the Stark Law by improperly billing Medicare for their own IGRT referrals to AROC, despite the fact that AROC and SVUA were separate entities and their financial arrangements did not comply with any exceptions to the Stark Law.

The Lessee Urologists previously entered into settlement agreements pertaining to their IGRT claims, under which they collectively agreed to pay the United States $900,000.

The United States’ investigation was a coordinated effort by the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

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Overturned Compactor Injury Not Sudden or Extraordinary

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Jose A. Guzman was operating a compactor when he was injured. He had been employed by Carmel Valley Construction as a laborer for a little less than six months.The compactor, which is used to pack down soil, hit a rock while Guzman was working on a hillside with a 45-degree slope. The compactor rose in the air, caused Guzman to fall backwards, and then fell on top of him.

The WCJ determined that Guzman sustained an injury to his back and psyche arising out of his employment, and that the psychiatric injury was caused by a “sudden and extraordinary employment condition” thus circumventing the Labor Code 3208.3 requirement for six months of employment as a prerequisite for a psychiatric injury..

In reaching this determination, the WCJ referred to the following evidence: Guzman had never been injured by having a compactor fall on him, he had never experienced such an incident before, there was no evidence that this type of injury had occurred in a similar fashion before, Guzman never had any close calls involving an injury when using a compactor, he never had an accident using a compactor before, and he never thought there was any risk of injury while using the compactor.

The WCJ concluded that “having a compactor fall on top of an employee is not something that would reasonably be expected to occur. This type of injury is not a frequent, regular, or routine part of the job. In fact, there is no evidence that having a compactor fall on an employee had ever occurred before. For this reason, it is reasonable to find that this injury was not something that could have been anticipated. This was not the type of injury that would be foreseeable.”

The State Fund  petitioned for reconsideration which was denied. The Court of Appeal reversed in the unpublished opinion of State Compensation Insurance Fund v W.C.A.B. and Jose Guzman

The Court noted that “the language and legislative history of section 3208.3 instruct that the Legislature’s public policy goals should be considered when determining whether an award of benefits is warranted. The Legislature made quite clear that it intended to limit claims for psychiatric benefits due to their proliferation and their potential for fraud and abuse. Therefore, any interpretation of the section that would lead to more or broader claims should be examined closely to avoid violating express legislative intent.”

Guzman failed to meet his burden of proving that a “sudden and extraordinary employment condition” caused his injury. Guzman did not provide any evidence establishing that it is “uncommon, unusual, and totally unexpected” for a rock to be in soil, for a compactor to rise when striking a rock, or for an operator to become unbalanced and to fall when the compactor rises on a 45-degree hillside. Indeed, he did not introduce any evidence regarding what regularly or routinely happens if a compactor hits a rock on a slope.

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Tustin Podiatrist Faces Extradition for Insurance Fraud

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A former Tustin podiatrist is accused of insurance fraud for billing for medical services she never performed, according to prosecutors.

Dr. Renae Louise Witt, 47, of La Pine, Oregon, is awaiting extradition after being charged with seven felony counts of insurance fraud with sentencing enhancements for aggravated white collar crime over $100,000 and loss of over $65,000, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office (OCDA).

Witt is a 2003 graduate of the California School of Podiatric Medicine at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland. Her California license is still active. However public records show that she was disciplined in 2014 for “Insurance Fraud.”

While practicing in Tustin between May 12, 2015, and March 31, 2017, Witt allegedly submitted fraudulent billing for services not rendered on six patients after their treatment was complete, prosecutors say.

She billed Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Cross/Blue Shield $174,395 for various medical services she never performed and deposited large sums of money from the insurance transactions into her business bank account, the OCDA alleges. Witt moved to Oregon this past Nov. 6.

Anthem Blue Cross contacted the OCDA to report potentially fraudulent billing by Witt. After an investigation by the Orange County prosecutors, Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies arrested her in La Pine on Friday.

Witt could be sent to state prison for 16 years if she is found guilty, according to the OCDA.

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