Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, it's one of the largest art thefts in the

United States.

There was wall -to -wall artwork, sculptures, paintings, prints, drawings.

Four million dollars of fine art vanishes.

The Rothko was worth the most.

Picasso print.

This is the golden egg. Now, the thief tells all. I looked at Byron, I said,

know, we'll either be princes or prisoners, you know, if this thing goes

And later, in Cleveland...

A doctor is a hypocrite with a Hippocratic Oath. What is he doing?

It's a really big disgrace.

Giving painful, dangerous injections.

Oh, this is just awful. On a multi -million dollar fraud scheme that ends

death. I lost my best friend. I lost my husband.

I had a lot of artists say that it chooses you, you don't choose it, and I

I was always pretty much going to be an artist.

This is Donald Rash.

Art lover, painter, and convicted felon.

Well, it was definitely the passion for the works, passion for the artwork.

Rash is the man behind one of the largest art thefts in the United States,

conspiring to rip off more than 130 pieces of fine art.

Rash says it was a crime of passion, motivated by his love for art.

I wanted to keep them and to have them and to be able to see those beautiful

works by great masters of modern art.

For more than two years, Rash got away with it. That is, until 2004, when a

private eye named James Anterio rolled onto the scene and picked up the case.

I was hired by clients to try and track down several very expensive pieces of

artwork that was stolen from them.

Ontario's clients, David and Diane Harder, are a Florida couple who spent

decades building their collection.

Among their treasures, a Picasso, works by Henri Matisse, and a 1968 Rothko.

Museum -quality pieces valued at more than $4 million.

It was a large collection of artwork, she said, that was being stored in the

Louis area.

The Harters stored their art here at Fine Arts Express.

And for eight years, their artwork was safe.

But then, in October of 2004, the Harters received a letter informing them

their art had been stolen.

They had received a letter from an attorney out of the St. Louis area.

He's pretty much saying, I have a client that thinks he has some of your artwork

that might be stolen, but I'm not going to give up his name.

The Harders called authorities but couldn't get any answers.

Ultimately, they turned to James Anterio and asked the investigator to work the

case. It's a lot of times looking for a needle in a haystack.

The next day, Anterio and his partner hop a plane to St. Louis and hit the

street. This attorney has a client out there that potentially has some of this

artwork. We started at the attorney's building. This is where Gregory White,

attorney, has an office.

Anterio stakes out the building and searches for clues as to the identity of

attorney's client.

We did surveillance on the attorney.

We did surveillance on the attorney's office. We did a lot of trash diving,

dumpster diving, we call it. Put our latex gloves on and dig through garbage.

The dirty work pays off when Ontario digs out a slip of paper containing the

name Stuart Slavin. We came across the name along with a couple of the pieces

artwork that he either had purchased or was trying to purchase on a handwritten

sheet of paper. type of paper and just discard it.

It's a name that has been in front of Ontario all along.

Stuart Slavin is a local real estate broker who owns the office building.

It was like a puzzle. It fit together and you've got to go and try and follow

that lead.

You've got to go and see who this is and does he have pieces?

On October 20th, Ontario heads to Ladue, a city known for big houses and big

bank accounts.

Just after 2 a .m., Ontario rolls down Fordyce Lane and scopes out Slavin's

Mansion.

We dressed in all black.

We're doing visual. We're doing binoculars. We're doing night vision.

We're doing all the tricks of the trade.

Suddenly, Ontario catches a break.

My partner, he was looking through a night vision scope, and I remember him

grabbing my arm and saying, oh, my gosh.

There it is. There it is. And I'm like, what? And he goes, there's one of the

photographs.

Hanging on a wall in plain view is the Harters' William de Kooning painting and

a Richard Diepenkorn drawing.

Below that, the Archipenko sculptor.

Together, the pieces are valued at nearly half a million dollars.

This is going to be the first domino of many dominoes now falling.

You find that first piece, and then usually things just start falling into

after that.

And Terrio knows that he's on to something big, so he takes the case to

Bridgeton Police Department.

We operate under the Army theory, adapt, improvise, and overcome.

All you need is good people, and you can do anything.

Detective Lance Harris takes the case.

Normally I work crimes against persons, which is all the serious assaults, the

robberies. the rapes, and the murders.

This is the Willem de Kooning painting.

Supposedly, that's a nude woman, and allegedly, it's Marilyn Monroe.

Slavin was a fairly well -known art collector in the area, so it didn't

me that he would have these, but I didn't think Slavin was a thief.

It's Alexander Arkopenko, a statue.

Harris examines the photos and files for a search warrant to recover the stolen

property.

Meanwhile, with more than 130 pieces of art still missing, Ontario takes a new

approach. Might have been under art.

I went back to the hotel that we were staying at. I asked the front desk for a

yellow page book, and I turned to the art gallery, and I chose three of them.

Ontario visits two galleries with no luck.

Then he sets his sights on Codner Gallery, and everything changes.

I know I looked out of place because I walked in, I was in cargo shorts, and it

was about 30 degrees out.

I had my sunglasses on, a little black binder filled with artwork.

Just after 2 p .m., Ontario meets Jonathan Codner, the co -owner of the

and hands him a binder filled with images of stolen art.

So he opened the book, and the first one he turned to was the Rothko, the Mark

Rothko. Mark Rothko is a world -renowned abstract artist.

One of his works recently sold at auction for $72 million.

He's known for his works using bold, horizontal swaths of color.

I started breathing real hard, and then I knew. I knew that I had hit on

something, but I just didn't know what.

Jonathan Podner knows this Rothko well.

One year earlier, he purchased the painting, along with seven other pieces

art, from an old family acquaintance.

He was like, oh my God. I said, I told you, I'm a private detective. This is

stolen art.

But he was almost starting to cry and hyperventilating. I said, calm down,

down. And he was like, oh, my God, I know I shouldn't have trusted him. I

shouldn't have trusted Valir. Byron Valir.

Byron Valir is a man from a wealthy St. Louis family and a former manager at

Fine Arts Express.

Two years earlier, Valir told the Codners that his wife inherited more

pieces of fine art.

The Codners did their homework.

and searched the global databases of stolen art.

When everything checked out, they snapped up seven paintings, never

were actually stolen pieces.

Now investigators have a break, and the name of a suspect will ultimately lead

them to more than a million dollars in stolen art.

He had 70 pieces of art, so I thought it would be a lot, but it was pretty

impressive. I mean, there was a lot of art there, and it packed one of the

conference rooms of the art office. I mean, it was everywhere.

In 2002, art thieves strike hard in St. Louis, Missouri, and make off with more

than $4 million of fine art.

Hardworking people that put their hard -earned money into a collection of

something that they love and just have it ripped from underneath them. You

it's a sad situation, very sad.

James Anterio is a private investigator, hot on the trail of more than 130

pieces of stolen art.

After 16 days on the case, he's tracked down about a million dollars worth of

stolen art and ID'd a suspect named Byron Valier.

In the meantime, Detective Lance Harris obtains a search warrant for Stuart

Slavin's home, the home where Ontario spotted three stolen pieces of art.

We saw three or four detective vehicles come with a big U -Haul.

I would say there was a good six to eight detectives.

On November 2nd, 2004, a team of detectives enter Slavin's house and

the artworks one by one.

The de Kooning, the Art of Penco, and the Deacon Corps.

But then there is more.

We're excited about the three because we knew that there was going to be three.

And they're bringing more out and we're like hugging each other in the car.

At the end of the day, detectives recover eight pieces of stolen art.

And they also get another name.

I told me about him from a guy named Donald Rash.

That's who he bought it from. I figured that's who stole it, yeah.

Donald Rash, like Byron Valier, used to work at Fine Arts Express.

According to Slavin, Rash fabricated a story and conned him into believing he

had inherited the art.

I think Mr.

Slater was looking for a good deal, but I don't think he had any knowledge or

any complicity in the theft at all.

This is a painting by Michael Lucas.

Tony Slater worked with Donald Rash and Byron Valier at Fine Arts Express for a

year and a half.

This Madonna and Child after Raphael is by Kevin Winters. And word of the theft

hits hard for Slater. Yeah.

Of course it made me mad.

I've protected art all my life, or all my adult life.

It inspires me. It delights me. It's fun to look at.

It records history.

It's just part of us.

Slater says a theft at the warehouse wouldn't be hard to pull off.

It would have been very easy because there is no security whatsoever.

You could come in and turn off the alarm and take whatever you want.

Slater remembers Fine Arts Express as a poorly run business where art was

secondary to profits.

The loading dock doors were open when it was 10 degrees outside. They were open

when it was 100 degrees outside.

I've seen all kinds of really bad handling techniques.

It was all about making money fast.

And according to Schlater, the Lear and Rash were part of the problem.

When Bridgton police called me, I put Don together right away with it.

Now, Byron was a surprise.

Don was a scrounger, a player, you know, always trying to get rich

quick scheme.

He was kind of undependable, and I think he drank a lot.

And Byron was just lazy and was mad that he had to work at all and couldn't lay

around the swimming pool.

Byron Valier and Donald Rash appeared to be two men from opposite sides of the

tracks, both who, in a twist of fate, ended up at Fine Arts Express, where

together they hatched up a plan to steal millions of dollars of art.

But now the game is up.

I was enthusiastic that it wasn't a cold case. I mean, they had suspects, it was

fresh, and they had recovered some significant pieces.

Frank Brostrom is one of 12 special agents on the FBI's art crime team.

On November 16, 2004, Brostrom takes the case.

Our goal was to try to at least recover the artwork first, get it back, get it

in a safe place, and then worry about making the arrest.

Brostrom's first order of business...

Pay his suspects a visit and turn up the heat.

I gave them 48 hours to voluntarily surrender the artwork, or I would have

experts come in from Washington, D .C., and they would be under investigation

federally.

When Brostrom comes face -to -face with Byron Valliere, the scare tactics work.

I guess you would call it a deer -in -a -headlight look.

He wasn't expecting a visit by the FBI that day, and certainly not.

a special agent who's on the art crime team. He gave him the big three

and he said that the FBI was involved and he didn't have all the artwork back

Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

that he was going to come out and start arresting people. He started breathing

heavily.

He was, you know, very deep breath as if he was nervous.

His face turned red. I knew we had him. I knew we had him. And I felt confident

that when I walked out the door that we would get cooperation and that we would

most likely recover at least some of the artwork.

48 hours later, Vallier surrenders the art.

The attorney for Byron Vallier called us on Wednesday.

and said, I have a bunch of stuff here that you might be interested in.

When Harris and Brostrom head to the attorney's office, they realize they

hit the jackpot.

The night before Thanksgiving, Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Yep. It was a long night.

Yes, it was.

There was a room like this, about half this size, I guess, filled with artwork.

Overwhelmed. We knew we were going to get some stuff back.

I didn't think we'd get that much back.

sculptures, paintings, prints, drawings, steel sculptures, wood

sculptures. We weren't expecting that many pieces.

We had to call for backup.

One day, Byron Valliere hands over 46 pieces of stolen art.

He was very remorseful. He knew he screwed up.

I thought that Byron was probably not as economically or as academically

successful as other members of his family. Having this artwork would give

access, A, to money, and B, to prestige.

And he would do it not because he's a dishonest man that scary music plays

he comes in the room, but because he wanted to feel important.

He's going to have to go to jail, but, you know, a lot of people go to jail.

Donald Rash, on the other hand, isn't cooperating.

Brass struck me as a liar. I didn't think he could tell the truth if the

fell on him out of a tree.

His physical response was not the same.

Like he was put off by the whole thing and that we didn't understand because he

was an artiste.

He was arrogant and ignorant at the same time.

With no sign of the artwork, Rostrum heads to Rash's house with a search

warrant. Within three weeks, he recovers 26 pieces of stolen art.

It was like an Easter egg hunt.

He did have certain items out and available for us to look at and recover,

and we were looking in laundry baskets and under clothing and in washers and

dryers looking for items, and we did recover a few other items that wasn't

readily apparent to us.

Donald Rash is in a tight spot and is about to tell all.

There's always something in the back of your mind that thinks, you know, you're

always waiting for the other shoe to fall.

As it did.

By December of 2004, the game is up for Donald Rash and Byron Valliere, two men

who stole more than 130 pieces of art from an art storage facility in the St.

Louis area.

Authorities have built a solid case, but the question remains, why did they do

it, and how did they pull it off?

Donald Rash, as it all started in 2001, when he and Byron Valliere came across a

couple of large storage boxes, at Fine Arts Express.

These are big boxes, bin boxes, what they were called.

And the only thing that was on it at all was just a name, Harder, H -A -R -T -E

-R.

According to management, the name Harder was nowhere in the system.

And the art storage bill hadn't been paid in months.

As far as he knew, the Harters had not paid their bill. But that isn't really

correct. What had happened was that the FAE business had changed hands so many

times that they were paying bills to a company that no longer owned the

where the art was stored. So somebody was cashing their check.

From the top on down, it seemed that it was run in a very shoddy sort of way.

It came as no surprise to us that no one knew what it was about, that there was

no paperwork on it.

We called the main office and they were, don't bother us with it.

It seemed kind of par for the course.

Rash says Valier tried to locate the Hargers.

He said he did everything in his power.

Couldn't find them.

We began to think that either of these people were dead, didn't exist.

Months later, they cracked open the crates and searched for a paper trail.

We discovered, okay, this isn't just someone's regular art. This is a big

name. And we open up the next piece.

It's another big name.

And, you know, soon I start feeling like, you know, Carter, and he's opening

to an uncommon tune. And it's just like one after another after another.

Rash discovered the Rothko, the Frankenthaler, the Matisse's, and says

hooked. And he started thinking about it and go, wow, you know, if this stuff is

abandoned, it needs to go somewhere where it's taken care of.

Rash says after weighing their options for four months and with no sign of the

Harters, he and Valier decided to simply take the art.

Byron came in back.

And he looked at me and said, dude, today's the day.

So he went down, got a 12 -pack of beer. We pretty much called it the rest of

the day and started unwrapping the pieces.

Over the next few hours, Rash and Valier took turns plucking pieces from the

collection.

To be honest with you, we had a very, very good time dividing up which piece.

When the day was done, Rash and Valeer each walked away with more

than 50 pieces of stolen art.

of selling the work.

I wanted to keep them for the rest of my life.

He talked about making love to his girlfriend underneath the William de

that was hanging on his wall.

And so we knew that he was one of the people that didn't do it for financial

reasons. He did it for the love of art.

And for two and a half years, Rash cherished the art until the scheme came

crashing down.

There's always something in the back of your mind that thinks, you know, you're

always waiting for the other shoe to fall, you know, as it did.

In the summer of 2005, Valier and Rash both plead guilty to conspiracy to

and violate the interstate transportation of stolen goods.

At sentencing, Valier gets 90 days in the federal lockup. Donald Rash,

gets two years.

Somehow, my co -defendant brokered his way.

into 90 days at Marion and 90 days home confinement, whereas

I got two years.

That's going to tell you something.

I think they both should have got 30 years in prison, but I'm not a judge or

lawyer, so it doesn't matter what I think.

So what I want is justice is what you get in the courtroom, whether you like

or not.

The cocktail is eluding me.

We're still missing that.

It's a wire sculpture by Alexander Calden.

With Rash and Valier behind bars, the work still isn't done for investigators.

Unlike Mr. Rash, who really hoarded and held on to the artwork,

up until the point he sold it to Stuart Slavin, Mr. Valier marketed those items,

and they were sold to other galleries and other private collectors in the

States and overseas.

This piece right here, the Rothko prank, tracked all the way to Tokyo.

Over the next two years, the FBI's art crime team tracks the stolen art. They

find pieces in museums, art galleries, and private collections across the

country and even around the world.

He got it back from Japan. Nobody ever said he wouldn't. What did that thing

sell for recently?

It recently sold for $2 .6 million. Everyone cooperated. The galleries

cooperated.

and we were able to have it flown back to the United States and to St. Louis.

A very expensive crate.

I like the crate more than I like the Rothko.

To date, Brostrom and Harris have recovered more than 100 pieces, making

largest art recovery for the FBI's art crime team.

Still, many pieces remain missing.

We're still missing the antique Smith & Wesson revolver.

From the 1800s. I wish I had a better picture.

Frank Brostrom isn't stopping anytime soon.

Here it is, Picasso print.

This is the golden egg that I hope before we're done that we can recover. I

believe that somebody holds the key to its current location.

We mean business, and that we're determined to recover as many of these

pieces as we can. And we're not going to give up until we do.

It's a long time when you're in the system.

Two years, to me, seems like an eternity.

For Donald Rash, life behind bars has given him a new perspective on his

No, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it to bring about that kind of hardship

on other individuals, the people that I love, to bring about hardship on myself.

If I could look back on that fateful day,

And know then what I know today.

No, I wouldn't have done it.

Who would have?

Up next, a doctor takes advantage of desperate patients.

He could have injected me with gasoline. It wouldn't matter if it helped.

You know, I was just in that much pain.

And sticks insurance companies for millions.

I'm done.

I'm done.

When American Greed returns.

The feds take down Dr. Jorge Martinez.

It's like a nightmare.

Long needle.

Jabs in the back.

Over and over.

And for the chance to relieve pain, some patients endure it week after week.

To the doctor giving the shots, Dr. Jorge Martinez, the shots mean even

They mean a big house and an affluent lifestyle.

The shots bring in money, big money.

Cleveland's a hard -working town where an honest day's work makes an honest

buck.

Jack Lancaster and his wife, Karen, make a good life here.

Jack is a gentle giant, a loving husband and father.

He was 6 '7". He was a big guy.

Lots of fun, full of energy, full of life.

He works as a truck driver.

But in 1990, Jack gets into a terrible accident.

He was run off the road by another driver who had run the stop sign.

He looked pretty bad at the time. We were pretty worried.

Jack pulls through, but with serious back and neck injuries.

He faces a life of chronic pain and seeks relief from Dr. Martinez.

Martinez prescribes powerful medications like Valium, Percocet, Vicodin, and

even Oxycontin.

which is sometimes called legal heroin on the streets.

About a year into seeing Dr. Martinez, I started noticing very drastic changes

with him.

He became anxious.

He became verbally abusive, and he was paranoid.

Jack is hooked on his pain medication.

He has a standing appointment with Martinez every Wednesday.

And the doctor tells him he needs nerve block injections to dull the pain. The

injections can cost more than $5 ,000 and typically offer pain relief for two

three months.

But for Jack, they don't seem to work, and he hates them.

But Dr. Martinez makes it clear, no shots, no pills.

He said, if I don't get the injection, I will not get my medication.

So I endure the injections so that I can get my pills.

Jack begins to supplement his legal drugs with illegal drugs like cocaine.

He's arrested several times and in 2001 is thrown in jail.

Unable to take his pain meds for a month, Jack detoxes.

He got out of jail on a Tuesday. The next day, he was right in Dr. Martinez's

office. Jack goes from taking nothing in jail... back to a cocktail of meds. Two

days later, he is rushed to the hospital.

He had aspirated, and the fluid went into his lungs. He was literally

in his own fluids.

With Jack direly ill, his wife pays a surprise visit to Dr. Martinez's office

find out what happened.

He said he gave him some injections.

He said he wasn't feeling really good. He said, so I let him rest for a little

while, but then I gave him a couple of Zoloft and sent him on his way.

And I thought that was really odd.

Frustrated, Karen heads back to the hospital.

Jack was in intensive care for six days, and then he passed away.

Jack Lancaster dies on September 13, 2001, at the age of 42.

Karen blames Dr. Martinez.

He put all of his faith in Dr. Martinez, and he

betrayed him.

But Jack Lancaster's death isn't what catches the eyes of investigators from a

half -dozen agencies around town.

It's Martinez's billings that light up all their radar screens.

Many patients visit Martinez weekly, while most pain doctors see their

monthly. And Martinez's billings are much higher than average.

One by one, investigators go on high alert, from the FBI to private insurance

companies to Medicare and Medicaid and the State Workers' Compensation Bureau.

One of the oldest detection methods we in health care investigations do is you

just look at how much money you're paying.

In 1998, he goes from $26 ,000 to $2 ,000. He's well up over a million

dollars in payments from our agency. I have never in my career seen a practice

escalate that quickly.

So where does the money come from?

Is it from the shots?

Two of these types of injections per patient.

Dr. Martinez is averaging 64 of these types of injections.

The numbers add up, and then they multiply.

What's in those shots is money.

You're looking at payments of $1 ,000 to $3 ,500 for one day of service.

And then you're looking at frequencies where the patients are coming in every

week, every two weeks, to get these injections.

And then there are the prescriptions.

Martinez writes plenty of them for powerful medications.

But the paperwork he submits offers little explanation for why they're

prescribed.

How could they be getting all these prescriptions and no medical claims to

substantiate it?

Medicaid suspends payments to Dr. Martinez.

The pain doctor isn't happy, and he responds with a 75 -page letter accusing

government of singling him out.

It was really bizarre, to say the least.

With the FBI in the lead, the federal, state, and private investigators join

forces, and cooperation pays.

The group adds up nearly $60 million in claims from Martinez.

The team knows it's that kind of money that can bring a conviction.

When we return...

The U .S. Attorney's Office takes the case and prepares to shut Martinez down

and bring him in.

For more information and special web exclusives, log on to AmericanGreed

.com.

In Cleveland, federal investigators are on to Dr. Jorge Martinez.

A pain doctor suspected of fraud.

The U .S. Attorney's Office aims to take Martinez out of business and into jail.

Compared to most fraud cases, these health care fraud cases are much more

difficult to prosecute.

A native of Costa Rica, Martinez attended the University of Guadalajara

school. He climbed up the medical ladder, first at hospitals, then in

practice, eventually landing in Ohio in the early 90s.

Quickly, his lifestyle grew.

Well, he had paid cash for a million -dollar home in the Cleveland area, and

you know Cleveland real estate values, you know that's quite a home.

Investigators began talking with former employees and patients, and the profile

began to emerge.

They came in two classes, really.

First were the people who were simply drug addicts. They're addicted to

prescription medication.

And then we also had people who had actually been hurt. They had had

accidents. They'd had some work -related injury.

Mariah Crenshaw saw Dr. Martinez every week after a car accident left her in

chronic pain.

He pretty much kind of put me to sleep for almost a year.

He had me on Vicotin and Percocet.

He had me on Xanaflex, which is a muscle relaxant.

I think I was taking somewhere between 18, maybe 24 pills a day.

On each visit, Martinez requires patients to sign at least 10 different

documents. But one of those documents seems especially unusual.

It serves acknowledgement and lasts well.

It says, I, Mariah Crenshaw, have been well informed by Dr. Martinez that I may

die if I take at once all the pain medications I have been prescribed or

may die if I take the pain medication in other ways or forms but the one

prescribed to me.

by Dr. Martinez, and that I may die if I mix the pain medication with alcohol or

illegal drugs.

Therefore, in case I die of an overdose, it is my last will that my death be

considered a voluntary suicide and that Dr. Martinez not be indicted or

prosecuted for my death, and then he would have us sign it and witness it.

I've certainly never seen anything like this. I've never seen it in any other

medical case.

This is extraordinary.

All the same handwriting, all the same results.

every single time.

And Martina's reports seem extraordinarily uniform.

Form after form shows patients in good condition 30 minutes after an injection.

On the form, you'll see each one has a stamp.

And within that stamp, handwriting explaining that for whatever patient

was, the person rested for 30 minutes after the shot.

was evaluated to be in stable condition, discharged in good condition, records a

pulse and a BP, was prepped, etc.

This information was pre -xeroxed and stamped on every office form before any

patient was ever seen.

These were kept in stacks on the back of every door in the office. They don't

reflect any individualized treatment whatsoever.

Then, there are those expensive and painful shots that can cost more than $5

,000 each week.

Oh, wow. They were probably as horrendous as the pain I was dealing

He would give me nerve blocks in my neck, straight into my neck. He would

give them to me in my upper hip, my lower back.

And for about two years, Crenshaw endured the injections week after week.

He could have injected me with gasoline. It wouldn't matter if it helped.

You know, I was in that much pain. I was that desperate.

A theory evolves.

Definitely becoming a pattern that a fair number of his patients were also

people with addiction problems.

Multiple prescriptions per visit for narcotics, sedatives, sleeping pills,

and four prescriptions at a time were not uncommon.

What he did was prescribe medication and...

People then became dependent on these narcotics.

And when they're dependent on the narcotics, then they're going to have to

back to their supplier, their drug dealer.

Investigators suspect that these addicted patients would do anything,

endure painful, unnecessary, and expensive injections to get their

prescriptions. For Martinez, the equation rakes in millions.

Is Dr. Martinez hurting his patients to make cash?

A hypocrite to the Hippocratic Oath?

Investigators hatch a plan to go inside his office where they will find their

smoking gun.

The feds in Cleveland know they've got something big.

Too many fingers are pointing at Dr. Jorge Martinez.

The investigation tells not only of potential medical fraud, but of death,

They learn of Jack Lancaster's death after months of bills totaling more than

$150 ,000.

Dr. Martinez loaded him up with drugs and billed for thousands of dollars of

injections. Afraid more patients might be hurt, the team decides they must get

inside Martinez's medical office.

The FBI approaches a nurse who agrees to wear a hidden camera in her smock.

And investigators see more than they'd even imagined.

Dozens upon dozens of patients receiving the shots.

Seeing is believing.

From the first exam that the employee videoed through the last, seeing is

believing.

The doctor would poke his head into the room, ask the patient, Are you getting

a shot, basically? If the patient said yes,

then the doctor would say, bad side up, which meant whatever side.

had the pain was to be placed up so the doctor could perform the injection in

that area.

When investigators compared the video to the paperwork, they suspect Martinez is

performing a simple trigger point injection, which relieves muscle spasms

instead of the much more costly nerve blocks he bills for.

When you look at what the doctor actually did on the tape, that's not

done. But this is what was billed for, and therein was the fraud.

We asked Dr.

Magdalena Anatescu of the University of Chicago, is this a nerve block?

No, I mean, to me it looks like a trigger point. I don't think it's a

block. No, it's not a nerve block.

It's a trigger point injection.

Well, I mean, I don't even know what he's doing, really.

The needle is huge. I mean, there's a possibility to hit the kidneys in there,

to hit the aorta, to hit the aorta or any other vessel, and it would be a

complication.

And then that is one. Number two, I mean, those people are having street

clothes. Risk of infection is really high. I mean, it's totally unacceptable.

This is what a nerve block injection typically looks like.

This doctor spends about 15 to 30 minutes prepping for and performing this

procedure.

While Martinez spends as little as three minutes.

The evidence is overwhelming.

On September 2, 2004, federal agents raided the doctor's home.

It took him approximately five minutes to answer his door, but he did answer

door. Dr. Martinez was actually very calm. He asked what he was being

for. He was advised for health care fraud.

Agencies about $7 million in assets and confiscate more than 200 boxes of

documents.

Martinez is arrested on multiple fraud charges.

And for the death of Jack Lancaster, Martinez becomes one of the first

hit with a new charge, health care fraud resulting in death.

Dr. Martinez is accused in the death of a Parma office patient who received

prescriptions from multiple painkillers.

Jack Lancaster's widow, Karen, sees Martinez's arrest on the local news,

documents referring to a patient who died with the initials J .L.

She calls the authorities, telling them she's J .L.'s widow and begins

cooperating with the investigation.

Since his arrest, Martinez's lawyers have advised him to keep a low profile.

He has declined interviews with the media, including American Greed.

However, from jail, he has written dozens of letters.

He wrote me two or three letters a week after he was arrested.

He said that he had tried to help people, that he was innocent.

That he did address pain aggressively.

In all his letters, he maintained his battle cry.

The government set him up.

Meanwhile, those confiscated files tell a different story.

We showed that the doctor's treatment or mistreatment of the patient was invalid

over 99 % of the time. That also meant that over 99 % of the doctor's billings

were also fraudulent.

Jonathan Whitmer -Rich of the Federal Public Defender's Office now handles

Martinez's case.

Dr. Martinez's number one priority was to relieve people's pain, and he did

that. But in January 2006, a jury finds Dr. Jorge Martinez guilty of 56

criminal counts, including drug distribution beyond medical bounds, mail

wire fraud, health care fraud.

and health care fraud resulting in death.

He now sits in a West Virginia federal prison awaiting an appeal for his

conviction and two life sentences.

So people lost their health, and they lost their freedom, and some of them

lost their lives to Dr. Martinez.

In an upcoming episode of American Greed...

I look towards the door, and there's a man standing there with a gun pointing

me. A mysterious bank robber terrorizes the suburbs of Chicago.

I don't believe this person's going to give up peacefully.

I believe this is absolutely going to end violently.