Doctor at Children's Hospital held on 655-count prescription-fraud indictment - The Denver Post

Doctor at Children's Hospital held on 655-count prescription-fraud indictment - The Denver Post

A federal grand jury has indicted a prominent Children's Hospital physician on 655 counts of prescription fraud based on allegations he operated an elaborate scheme to obtain tens of thousands of pain and sleeping pills using fake names and unwitting patients.

Dr. Louis C. Hampers, a specialist in pediatric emergency medicine at Children's and a faculty member at the University of Colorado, was arrested by federal investigators Tuesday in Virginia, the latest step in a months-long investigation.

The indictment accuses him of using five aliases — each with a fake identification card — to fill the bulk of the prescriptions. He is also accused of writing prescriptions for three other people that were actually for

Extras

• Read the indictment released by the Department of Justice. (PDF, 36 pages.)

himself.

Neither Hampers nor his attorney, Harvey Steinberg, returned messages.

The indictment is one of several legal problems Hampers faces.

He was forced to stop practicing medicine Aug. 23 after the Colorado Medical Board concluded that it had "reasonable grounds to believe" that Hampers "has deliberately and willfully violated the Colorado Medical Practice Act, and the public health, safety or welfare imperatively requires emergency action."

The board voted to suspend his license. In lieu of that step, Hampers voluntarily agreed not to see patients or perform any other duty that requires his license.

He also is the subject of a restraining order obtained by a television reporter, who has filed a civil suit against him alleging harassment.

Hampers is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania medical school, according to his biography on the Children's Hospital website. He completed a residency at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a fellowship at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

He was hired as a professor at CU in June 1999, and part of his contract required that he practice at Children's Hospital. He eventually rose to become medical director of the emergency department at Children's.

His current salary from CU is $206,000. In 2008, at a time the federal government now alleges he was regularly writing himself prescriptions for pain medications and other drugs, CU gave him control of $5.6 million over a five-year span for the operation of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine program at the university.

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