In early October 2019 my life changed forever. The woman I love was ripped from my life by an overzealous and unscrupulous Federal Government. I was not alone in my loss. Her 9-year old son lost his mother, her father lost his daughter, countless others lost a friend they cherished and loved. Worst of all, her patients had their care unceremoniously stripped away from them, throwing them to the winds of a culture that callously classified them as drug addicts undeserving of compassion. She was viciously attacked as a drug dealer by the government prosecutors and the media.

Her name is Jessica Spayd, and until that fateful day she was an Advanced Nurse Practitioner that owned and operated a small health care clinic in the town of Eagle River, just outside of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. Jessica had become the latest victim of a misguided nationwide persecution of pain providers across the country. The government, in their zeal to show the country they are doing something about the opiate crisis affecting so many, have chosen that instead of pursuing true drug dealers, or dealing with the actual problem of addiction, they would instead laser focus their efforts on law-abiding medical professionals. And what an easy target these medical professionals turn out to be. Everything they do is diligently documented in various forms from electronic medical records to the PDMP to medical examiner’s reports when, tragically, one of their patients passes away.

The charges against Jessica were serious. The government had entrapped Jessica by sending an undercover agent in to persuade her to prescribe opiates to him. After two visits in which she said she could not prescribe what he wanted, but instead would prescribe Suboxone, he returned a third time
and she finally relented and gave him the prescription he desired. This would form the basis of their argument of “outside the normal and customary” medical practice; or “for no legitimate medical purpose”. In addition to the charges they fabricated by framing her, they charged her with causing the deaths of 5 of her patients (even though the medical examiner’s report in all 5 cases was inconclusive when it came to the question of whether their death was a direct result of Jessica’s “reckless prescribing practices”). And of course they charged her for running her business as a “pill mill”. Interestingly, a “pill mill” is not defined in statute, but it is rather a casual pejorative bantered about in open court with no evidence to support the claim. Finally, Jessica faced the one true charge in all of this; she had unfortunately been convinced by a former patient to write prescriptions to a friend of his knowing full well the prescriptions were for her former patient, not his friend.

Fortunate for Jessica, her business property was in an LLC and her retirement was in a 401(k). Unbeknown to us, these assets cannot be automatically forfeited. It was with the small nest egg that Jessica was able to secure a private defense attorney. In what would turn out to be an unfortunate piece
of advice, Jessica agreed to waiver her right to a speedy trial. For three years we lived in anguishing pain at the thought of facing trial, but (after a 7-month detention after denial of bail) Jessica was able to live her life with those of us that love her. We buoyed our hopes on our belief that the justice system was
interested in finding the truth.

In June 2022 the U. S. Supreme Court released their Ruan ruling. In that, the justices said the government can no longer use their tried-and-true “outside of normal and customary” strategy but would instead be required to prove that a provider had malicious intent to cause harm by prescribing opiates. Armed with this victory, and knowing Jessica was innocent of the most serious charges against her, we continued preparing for trial.

The trial began in late September 2022. We knew immediately that this was not going to be what we expected. The prosecutor started lying and offering baseless character assassinations against Jessica during opening statements, a trend that continued through the last breath of his closing. The government’s witnesses lied on the stand. The prosecutor broke the law and trial procedure by bringing up irrelevant points about Jessica and her witnesses in open court, in front of the jury. Not in one or two isolated incidents, but multiple times. Each time the judge would clear the jury and excoriate the prosecution for their abhorrent behavior. But nothing changed. The lies and character assassination continued. After three-and-a-half weeks of brutal and baseless accusations by the prosecution, Jessica’s defense started. As mentioned, the prosecution attempted (successfully) to libel Jessica’s witnesses in front of the jury. To counter the character assassination attacks, Jessica’s first witnesses exalted her character and compassion as a professional medical provider, and how their lives had suffered with the end of their pain care. The prosecution would not stand for this and they convinced the judge that such testimony was detrimental to a “fair trial” (some bullshit about jury nullification).

In the end, Jessica’s defense lasted only a little over 3 days. The damage had been done by the prosecution and a willing accomplice sitting on the bench. There was no overcoming it. Even still, the rendering of “guilty on all charges” was devastating, leaving us all in shock. Our faith in the justice system shattered. We are all professionals. We do not dabble in the criminal world. This was our first exposure to the criminal “justice” system. And it was a truly horrifying experience.

Addendum by Linda Cheek, MD

Ms. Spayd was charged on October 17, 2019 with 3 counts of distributing a controlled substnace resulting in death, 4 counts of distribution of a controlled substance, and one count of maintaining a drug involved premises. More charges were added before the trial. She was convicted on October 28, 2022 of 10 counts. She was held in jail from her arrest October 17, 2019 to April, 2020.

In her trial, the government used the same witnesses as before, Drs. Timothy King and Timothy Munzing, and they used their usual testimony of their standard of care, which was definitely defeated by Ruan/Kahn. But obviously, that doesn’t matter. The propaganda wins.

The defense had 4 witnesses. But the government, using illegal gross government misconduct, sent their agents to the witnesses offices and intimidated them so that two backed out.

Understand that this is not going to stop unless we get the Controlled Substance Act repealed entirely. As long as people believe that drugs cause addiction, it is not safe to prescribe any controlled substance. The government will convict anyone they target, through lies, perjury, and propaganda.