Criminals in the Ranks

Crime in the mental health industry is far from limited to money matters. A review of more than 800 convictions of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists between 1998 and 2004 reveals that 43% of the convictions were for fraud, theft and embezzlement; 32% for sex crimes; 7% for patient assault and violent crime; 6% for drug offenses and another 6% for manslaughter and murder.

In June 2002, New Zealand psychiatrist Colin Bouwer, the former head of psychological medicine at the prestigious Otago University, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 15 years non-parole time to be served for murdering his wife by slowly poisoning her with drugs.

18 In November 2003, Ivan Zagainov, a psychiatrist in the Czech Republic, was sentenced to 13 years in jail for the strangulation murder of a 15- year-old female patient.

On November 12, 1993, psychiatrist Frederick Aptowitz pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting a former patient to kill a nurse, Terricita Clemons, who had worked for Aptowitz. He paid the former patient $3,000 to place dynamite under Clemons� car.

In the United States, 40% of psychiatrists are sued for malpractice during the course of their career. It is also ironic that while psychiatrists and psychologists claim to be experts of the mind and human behavior, they have the highest rate of drug abuse and suicide within the medical profession.

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