Panos out of prison, faces medical malpractice suits

Spyros Panos is out of federal prison after serving less than three years of his 4 ½-year sentence.

The former orthopedist and Hopewell Junction local who pleaded guilty to health care fraud was released from federal prison in mid-March. But Panos is still a defendant in more than 200 civil medical malpractice lawsuits.

Over the last few months, lawyers (for the plaintiffs and defendants) involved in the civil cases have been "exploring ... with the court's encouragement" the possibility of settlements in the malpractice lawsuits, said attorney Christopher Meagher of the Meagher & Meagher law firm, which is representing about 25 of the plaintiffs.

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By mid-to-late April, "we're going to have a lot better sense of where we are going,"  Meagher added.

Panos, 48, was accused of botching surgeries, doing unnecessary surgeries on healthy patients and more.

He pleaded guilty to one count of felony health care fraud in November 2013 and admitted to running a multimillion-dollar scheme that defrauded multiple health insurance providers. Panos was sentenced to 4½ years in federal prison (which he started serving in April 2014), followed by two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay millions in restitution and to the government.

With Panos out of prison, “a lot of the victims" — Panos' former patients — "feel a sense of being dispirited by him getting on with his life," Meagher said. Some of his former patients "won't be able to get on with their lives."

Panos declined to comment.

Asked about the basis of Panos' civil defense, his attorney Jeffrey Feldman, of the Feldman, Kleidman, Coffey, Sappe & Regenbaum firm, said: "It would be improper to get into the substance of that" at this time.

Mid Hudson Medical Group, Panos' former employer, is among the other defendants in a number of the medical malpractice cases. Messages to the attorneys for the group were not returned.

The exact number of civil cases pending against Panos is unclear; lawyers estimated a range of 240 to 260.

Because of the "broad scope" and number of cases, attorneys for the plaintiffs formed a committee late last year, Meagher said. The plaintiffs' committee has been meeting with defense attorneys, "making diligent efforts to reach some sort of a global resolution... all parties have been exploring that possibility."

In general, settlements in civil cases "are rarely admissions of liability," Meagher added. A settlement is usually "risk management from both sides ... generally, that means there's no concession of responsibility."

Lawyers are set to meet Tuesday for a conference in Westchester County Supreme Court.

Panos was released from Federal Correctional Institution McKean, a medium-security prison in Pennsylvania, on March 13, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

At least one civil case has made its way through state Supreme Court. In April 2014, a jury found Panos did not depart from the standard of care in treating Bernard Puiatti, who died in January 2008 at age 78. Panos was sued by Puiatti's widow, whose attorney claimed Panos did not properly treat an infection in Puiatti's right knee in December 2007 and that medical malpractice led to his death.

Nina Schutzman: nschutzman@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-451-4518 Twitter: @pojonschutzman