WICHITA, Kan. (AP) The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a Kansas doctor and his wife convicted in a moneymaking conspiracy linked to 68 overdose deaths.
The court on Monday denied without comment a petition seeking a hearing for Stephen and Linda Schneider, who ran a pain clinic in Haysville.
The Schneiders were convicted in 2010 of conspiracy, unlawfully prescribing drugs, health care fraud and money laundering. Stephen Schneider was sentenced to 30 years, and his wife to 33 years.
The decision lets stand a federal appeals court ruling that the Schneiders waived their right to conflict-free legal representation. New lawyers for the couple had argued their trial attorneys were little more than “mouthpieces” for an advocate for chronic pain patients who used the case to promote her agenda.
