Nelson Onaro, DO, a family practitioner in McAlester, Oklahoma, should be one of the first doctors to benefit from the federal judicial response to the illegal attacks on doctors for doing their job.

Dr. Onaro was indicted Sept 14, 2020 for 24 counts of prescribing controlled substances to patients. The feds used USC 21 §841(a) and USC 21 §1306.04 to charge him with prescribing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.  In the indictment, the government brazenly admits that the purpose of the allegations is to forfeit everything Dr. Onaro owned. That’s the entire purpose today, of the Department of Justice—confiscate our citizens’ assets for their own salaries. THIS NEEDS TO END!!

Nelson Onaro was one of 345 attacked by the US government in Sept, 2020. This was, at the time, the biggest government attack on health professionals in the history of the Justice Department. It involved 51 districts and more than 100 doctors and other licensed medical professionals. I don’t have the data right now on how many of these are currently sitting in prison cells, or awaiting that fate because they took a plea or lost at trial. Hopefully those still waiting will take Dr. Onaro’s lead and take the lying, corrupt government on.

Following this unprecedented attack on the medical profession, Dr. Onaro was forced to take a plea in July, 2021 for 6 counts of distribution of a controlled substance. He was scheduled for a sentencing hearing today, July 14, 2022. But luckily, on Monday his attorneys filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, stating that Dr. Onaro now has an affirmative defense after SCOTUS ruled 9-0 in Ruan v. United States.

One fact stated in the motion was:

“Until June 27th, 2022, Defendant doctors had very little to defend themselves.”

But now, with the Ruan and Kahn wins in the Supreme Court, the basis of our legal system in America has been brought back. That is the concept of mens rea, that the defendant, to be convicted, must have “the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime. SCOTUS ruled that once a defendant meets the burden of producing evidence that his or her conduct was “authorized,” the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or intentionally acted in an unauthorized manner.

“The Court categorically rejected the idea that physicians could be convicted as drug traffickers merely by showing they prescribed outside the usual course of practice, regardless of their intent,” Onaro’s defense attorney writes. “The Court observed that such a standard would ‘criminalize a broad range of apparently innocent conduct’ and risk deterring doctors from using their best judgment to benefit patients.”

“They told him they were in pain; Dr. Onaro then prescribed pain relieving medicine,” the motion states. “Dr. Onaro did nothing but act as a doctor.”

So now, Dr. Onaro, do not waive your rights to a speedy trial.  You have your defense.  They will require time to create a case against you. Don’t give it to them. They don’t have a leg to stand on except getting forced perjury from people. And hopefully all other medical professionals who have taken pleas will withdraw theirs as well. These illegal attacks on doctors must stop!