In the early
morning stillness, Janel made the decision to notify the FBI. They met early the following week at her
home. Just before ten in the morning, the shiny dark sedan pulled up in her
driveway and then backed out. Janel
peered from behind the vertical drapes in her living room. Janel remembered Hawaii Five-O and wondered
if these men would resemble Jack Lord.
Janel watched as the
FBI agent drove down the long cul-de-sac again.
“What’s he waiting for?” she thought.
After a few minutes another car arrived.
“It must be the investigator from the United States Department of Health
and Human Services,” she mused as the men disembarked and headed for her door.
She wasn’t sure what to expect.
Tony was blond and slight. Not at all what she expected.
Jimmy reminded her of J. Edgar Hoover.
He had that bulldog kind of look.
Under his arm he had about five pounds of computer printouts.
“Hi, I’m
Janel. You know I left several messages
at your office and no one returned my call.
Are you all that busy investigating criminal behavior?” she said.
The men sighed and
said nothing.
“So tell us about
why you’re doing this?”
“Dr. Tinson seems
to be running some kind of scam. He also talks about some kind of doomsday fire
in his writings. I knew this was beyond
me – I didn’t want to be involved any longer. I just quit,” Janel said.
The FBI agents and
Janel spoke about the same diagnoses and procedures which were used on nearly
all of Dr. Tinson’s clients.
Tony reached for
his glass case and put on his non-descript reading glasses. Jimmy pulled out his five-year printout of
Medicare billings from Dr. Tinson.
“God, Tony, we
have about a half-million here,” he said.
“So what does that
mean? Will you prosecute him?” Janel said with a determined stare.
The agents did not
respond to her question, simply talked on and on for two more hours about Dr.
Tinson’s operation.
As time went by, Janel
felt a lump growing in her throat. She
wondered what she had gotten herself into.
George had told
her he was uncomfortable that she was doing this but she had decided to do it
anyway. Not one to live in fear for not
doing the right thing, Janel knew she
had to go through with this.
Janel had always
thought that things happen for a reason. Well, she was tired of the reasons. She wanted
an explanation now.
Two weeks passed
before she received a call from Jimmy at the United States Department of Health
and Human Services.
“We have to review
the Tinson documents and see if we can build a case. Either way, can we keep your copy of his
Accounts Receivables and analyze them further?” he asked.
“Sure, I have
another copy,” Janel said.
“Most likely, we
can’t do a thing about him. He is just too bizarre to prosecute,” Jimmy
said.
Bizarre, she
thought. Our justice system is based upon bizarre? He commited a crime and I
lost my job defending the integrity of this country. And all the FBI can say is that he is too
bizarre to prosecute?
“Thank you for
calling,” Janel muttered in confusion.
But she was not
about to let this go. She reached for the telephone book and found the phone
number for the Office of the Attorney General.
Janel sighed and dialed his number.
“Hi, can I speak
to whomever is handling the case against Dr. Tinson? I think this office is
investigating him. I was his
administrator,” Janel said.
“Yes, I am
handling this case. My name is Barbara
Goldman.” Janel heard her take a deep
breath. “Thanks so much for
calling. How soon can we meet?” Goldman
asked.
Janel couldn’t
believe she was going through another bout with the Attorney General’s
Office. She laughed as she thought, “this
is like old home week.”
Sitting across
from each other, the conversation immediately focused.
“Can I ask you a
question, Janel?” Barbara said. “What made you do this? You know, our line of work is like a taffy
pull trying to get citizens to come forward.
You seemed so matter of fact about this,” she said.
“Well, it is just
wrong. I went into health care because I
wanted to help people,” Janel said.
Barbara and Janel
talked for hours. After their meeting, Janel went home…home to four walls where
she had no children,no partner, no job, no purpose. This is the home where no one lives – just
actors on a stage, she thought. Her
agony grew within her chest, rising to catch in her throat.
Finding her
journal, she allowed her grief to pour out onto page after page. Before she realized, she had a journal in
book form.
Eric came home for
a long weekend and suggested they buy a puppy.
“You know Mom, Annie is getting older now. Why don’t we get another dog? It would keep
you and her company,” he said.
Eric always warmed
her heart. Now she had a puppy to keep
her busy.
Janel continued to
send out resumes. She noticed an
advertisement in a local paper and applied for the position of Physician
Recruiter.
Two weeks later
she received a call from Human Resources to set up an interview. After a brief visit with her prospective
boss, she told George about the job.
“Well, I am
hired,” she said.
“Congratulations. You are back in business,” he laughed.
But Janel wasn’t
especially happy. She had trained as an
administrator and this was the job for which she wanted to be hired. However, she knew working even as a Physician
Recruiter would be good for her.
The company
allowed her to work at her home and meet physicians as needed in order to
recruit them for the HMO for whom she was working.
She continued to
meet with the Attorney General’s office regarding the respective cases against
her former employers.
It was the summer
of 1996 when Janel received the call from Barbara Goldman.
“I just wanted to
tell you that you will be receiving a subpoena to testify in the State’s case
against Dr. Tinson. Now that we have
garnered enough signed affadavit’s against him, we can present our case in
court. We are seeking to revoke his license to practice medicine,” Barbara
Goldman said.
Stunned, Janel
asked about the charges against him.
“For starters, he
isn’t board certified in any discipline but holds himself out as ‘being a
specialist in preventive medicine, family medicine and psychiatry’, he says on
his letterhead after his signature, Department of Psychiatry, indicating he is
on staff there when he is not even part of the admitting or consulting staff.
It also says he has a ‘research foundation’, but the organization is not recognized by any
of the science foundations’ that he does not maintain complete medical records
which is necessary for financial compensation, is ‘significant from an ethical
perspective’ overuses medical equipment for unnecessary testing, uses
medication for clients inappropriately as well as psychological testing
administration, interpretation and reporting instruments are generally done
with individuals with appropriate training,” she said.
“Okay,” Janel
said. She was told her testimony was
scheduled to be heard on the first day of the hearing.
It was a cold and
rainy day when the hearing began. After
scouring the parking lot for a safe, visible place to leave her car, she locked
the doors. Just outside the Administrative Law Court
building, she could see a dozen of Dr. Tinson’s sympathizers carrying placards
attesting to his innocence.
“Sir, is it safe
to leave my car on the lot?” she asked of the police officer at the security
check point.
“Sure. It should be fine,” he assured Janel.
Janel had a knot
in the pit in her stomach as she handed the officer her purse and proceeded
through. She paused at the door when she
heard a commotion behind her.
Dr. Tinson’s shiny
light gray limousine had just pulled up alongside the building. His scratchy beard had been removed to reveal
a smooth and angular face. He looked
much younger than his years. A large and
rotund man with a tattered suit appeared behind him carrying legal briefs. Both men stuggled to maintain control of
their voluminous legal papers. The
chauffeur opened the trunk and loaded the rest of the boxes into the dolly
waiting nearby.
Dr. Tinson was
wearing a high end dark suit, looking very professional as he smiled for the
cameras.
Janel knew he
staged this as he had staged many of the celebrity events in his life.
Newspapers
reporters cornered Janel as she made her way down the long haul.
“Can’t you tell us
something… anything?” they asked.
“No comment,”
Janel said.
Inside the court
room, cameramen scurried, adjusting
their equipment. They wanted to be live
when the sensational trial commenced.
Janel was the
first called. She was just sworn in when
the round sloppily-dressed prosecutor dug into her.
“What does the
staff think of Dr. Tinson?” he asked.
“I just started
working there when one employee after another came into my office. Each one asked me to promise I would not
reveal what they were about to say,” she said.
“Well then, don’t”
the prosecutor shouted. “Next witness!” he said. He turned away from the
stunned Janel. Her mouth dropped open.
“That is hearsay, your honor,” he said. The judge agreed.
With that, Janel’s
brief testimony was over. She was asked to return the following day in case her
testimony could be reinstated.
Feeling cut off at
the knees, Janel walked through the parking lot. Uneasy, she got into the car anyway. She dropped the keys in her lap and placed
her hands evenly on the steering wheel hesitant to put the key into the
ignition. Thoughts about the car
exploding raced through her mind.
Then with a stiff upper lip and a
pounding heart, Janel pulled her hands from the wheel, reached for the keys,
and put the key in the ignition, hoping the car would not hesitate to
start. The engine turned over and Janel
slowly left.
The following
morning Janel picked up a local tabloid
and discovered her name was mentioned in the story they were covering. She had worked hard to stay out of print. She wondered if Dr. Tinson was behind the
publicity for this story.
She drove to the Administrative Law Court
for another hearing the following day.
Again, the Deputy Attorney General was unsuccessful in getting her
testimony reinstated.
She left the court
and got into her car for the drive home.
As she turned the corner, she passed the local police department. Just then Janel heard an ear piercing
scraping sound coming from the right passenger side of her vehicle.
Simultaneously, she could not accelerate.
Unsure of what had happened to her car, she got out and walked around
it. Inside the wheel base she discovered
an eight inch L-shaped heavy metal wire which had been shoved up into the wheel
housing aimed at the front tire.
Janel was
scared. She left her car alongside the
road and walked a quarter mile to the Police Department. A detective followed her back to her car,
took pictures and removed the device.
“I was just at an Administrative Law Court
hearing against my former employer.
There was a motley assortment of his cult membership protesting this
hearing. They could have done this,” Janel said. Both Janel and the detective were baffled.
Later that day,
George returned home from work.
“What a day I
had,” Janel said. She told George what
had occurred.
He looked at
her. “My workout is really improving,”
he said.
By this time,
Janel was used to his indifference. She
needed a husband. Oh, how she needed a husband!
It was nearly
February when the trial ended. The State
lost its case against Dr. Tinson.
Janel decided to
go out for coffee that morning. When she read the heading on the newspaper,
she quickly purchased a copy.
“ Physician Sues Legal
Trio.” The physician was accusing the
state of slandering him. He was asking
three million dollars in damages.
She was grateful
she had nothing at all to do with this anymore, and happier still that this
case was over. She was glad to continue
her work without focusing another minute on the case.
She heard later
the physician was unsuccessful in his suit.
Her company closed
its offices later that year and Janel was out of a job.
She waited for
George to come home. She heard the
garage doors open and looked out to see George’s car pulling in.
“George, I never
expected this to happen to me. You hear
about everyone else losing a job. My
company is closing,” she said.
Surprisingly, the
look on George’s face was profound and sympathetic.
“Look at what you
have done with your life, look at your family.
When it is all said and done, money doesn’t go with you. But, just look
at those beautiful kids you raised! How many people can make a contribution to
society like that? You gave it all and
it shows,” he said to the shocked Janel.
“I worked so hard
and wanted to contribute to our finances, I wanted something to do, to make a
contribution…for me…something apart from our family.”
But the moment was
gone. With a blank face, her husband
reached once more for his gym bag, got into his car and drove away.
Once again, she
was alone.
