Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, Dr. Mark Weinberger, the self -proclaimed

nose doctor, has it all, and he's not afraid to flaunt it.

He had to be the big shot. He had to be different from everyone else.

But inside the Weinberger sinus clinic, all is not what it seemed.

All he did was bore two holes in my skull.

I found it pretty appalling. He was basically cheating the patients and

the system.

And when lawsuits threaten the empire he's built, the nose doctor heads for

hills. So this is base camp here.

Courmayeur, Italy. Deep in the Italian Alps. It's a snowy playground for

Europe's elite.

But there's one outsider who the locals still talk about.

An Indiana surgeon named Dr. Mark Weinberger.

In fact, in February 2010, a float in the town's Carnivale Parade depicts

Weinberger's tragicomic fall from grace.

He's seen as half surgeon, half scoundrel.

A man who went from living on an 80 -foot yacht to hiding out in a tent in

Alps, where he was arrested in 2009.

How did an ear, nose, and throat doctor from a small town in Indiana end up

depicted here?

The story begins more than 4 ,400 miles away at the Weinberger Sinus Clinic,

where, by all appearances, Dr. Weinberger is a top -notch physician.

All I wanted to do was breathe properly.

That's all.

Bill Boyer lives in northwest Indiana, where he holds down two jobs.

He's a heavy equipment operator by day and a bouncer by night.

He's had a life that's been a bit rough and tumble.

Yeah, I was an amateur boxer back in the 70s, and my nose was broken several

times. And I was having trouble with breathing through it, snoring. I just

decided to see if there was anything that could be done to get it fixed.

Driving around northwest Indiana, there's one thing that jumps out at him.

were giant billboards on the side of the road. It says, do you have sinus

problems, congestion?

Dr. Weinberger could come and fix it.

Boyer first walks into Weinberger's clinic in December 2003.

Within minutes, he receives a CT scan.

Dr. Weinberger meets with him to discuss the results.

He points to the computer there and shows me these.

really terrible -looking images on there, saying that was my sinuses. I

him, I go, that's in me?

And he said yes.

Boyer says Weinberger shows him images like these, showing sac -like growths

called polyps and a deviated septum blocking his sinuses.

But the nose doc says there's an easy fix, endoscopic sinus surgery.

Boyer has the operation weeks later.

Weinberger eventually sends his insurance company bills for more than

But the surgery brings Boyer little relief.

This is the way I breathe.

I'm back to square one before I went to Dr. Weinberger, but now I'm worse.

Mark Weinberger grows up in Westchester County, New York.

Academic success comes early.

You know, he got into Penn, then decided to go to medical school at UCLA, which

is an extremely good med school, and ended up getting one of the most sought

-after fellowships in the country in rhinoplasty. Basically, 100 people

two got it. The fellowship lands Weinberger in Chicago.

When he finishes, he has a surprise for his colleagues.

He's opening up shop as an ear, nose, and throat specialist in Merrillville,

Indiana.

You would not expect a guy like that to start practicing in this tiny little

town in northern Indiana.

But there was a method, frankly, to the madness.

Merrillville is located in northwest Indiana, the heart of the Rust Belt, and

might be the ideal place for a sinus surgery.

It's close to Gary, Indiana steel mills and factories belching out smoke.

Lots of air pollution means lots of patients with respiratory problems.

And the blue -collar workforce means generous union health insurance plans.

I think Mark went to Merrillville because he said these are really fat

ripe for the taking.

Weinberger arrives in Merrillville in the mid -90s.

More than five years before he opens the sinus clinic where he perpetrates his

alleged scam.

At first, he hangs out his shingle as a general ear, nose, and throat doctor and

uses operating facilities at a local hospital.

He introduced himself to me when we were both scrubbing in for our surgery cases

in neighboring operating rooms.

Plattis learns of Weinberger's reputation as an adept surgeon, and the

eventually become friends.

We'd hang out a little bit, go out for dinner, joke around a little bit. He had

a good sense of humor.

He was fun to be around.

Professional success comes easily to Weinberger, but at home it's a different

story. His first two marriages go belly up.

Then in 2000, Weinberger meets Michelle Kramer at a Chicago bar.

She's a 25 -year -old grad student, and as she later tells Larry King, they hit

it off immediately.

I was going to move out to San Diego, and I met him, and he swept me off my

feet, and within four days, I changed all my plans.

Months later, they are married, three separate times.

They got married in Chicago, and then they had a ceremony in Italy that Kate

I went to.

And then they came back home and had sort of large reception for friends who

didn't go to Italy.

He was always one for doing things sort of in a grand way.

Okay, Sean, here's one.

This is from Daddy and Me.

Dr. Weinberger was someone my mom trusted because he was a doctor.

Phyllis Barnes is 47 when she first sees Dr. Weinberger in 2001.

She's a social worker, helping Indiana's laid -off steel workers find jobs.

She very much enjoyed helping people and working with people, and she always

liked taking care of people.

But in 2001, Barnes says she's been suffering with a hoarse throat, losing

weight, and coughing up blood.

She wasn't getting any better.

I think one of her co -workers said, why don't you see this guy? He's got

billboards all over.

Barnes goes to see Dr. Weinberger.

She's a smoker, a hint that her troubles may be quite serious.

But Weinberger focuses in on her sinuses. He tells her the same thing he

Bill Boyer.

Her sinuses are blocked by nasal polyps, and she has a deviated septum.

Endoscopic surgery can fix the problem.

Weeks later, she goes under the knife.

But in his rush to get her into the OR, it's alleged that Weinberger never tells

Barnes she's suffering from something much worse than blocked sinuses.

He focused on the nose part of the ear, nose, throat doctor and left out the

throat.

Ken Allen represents Barnes and many other patients in lawsuits against Dr.

Weinberger. His diagnosis was never for the welfare of his patients.

His diagnosis was a diagnosis for dollars.

And for Phyllis, that was a death sentence.

When American Greed returns, patients get anxious when relief is nowhere in

sight. All he did was bore two holes in my skull.

And another scientist doctor uncovers Weinberger's secret. He's putting

at risk and sticking their insurance companies with massive bills.

In 2002, Dr. Mark Weinberger takes his already successful ear, nose, and throat

practice in a new direction.

He's decided to focus on sinuses, the most lucrative part of his specialty.

And he's going to build his very own facility, the Weinberger Sinus Clinic.

Back in this adjoining building here was his surgical center.

A one -stop shop.

Come in, get diagnosed, get operated on, and put out the back door.

Weinberger is the only doctor on staff at the new clinic.

There's no one to question his authority.

He wanted to be on his own for a reason.

There's a standard course of treatment for patients suffering from sinus

troubles. Medicate first, then try surgery as a last resort.

Weinberger seems to take the opposite approach.

In patient brochures, he asks, why should the patient only be given the

of taking pills their entire life to achieve temporary relief?

Dr. David Caldarelli chairs the Ear, Nose, and Throat Department at Rush

University Medical Center in Chicago.

You don't sort of set some patient up to say, I have the miracle answer for you

and it's surgery, not medicine.

It's promoting something medically that is unconscionable.

Weinberger brings in more and more surgery patients with a steady stream of

marketing. Billboards line area roads, touting his anti -medication philosophy.

These ads remind me of the old elixir salesmen back in the 19th century that

would come to town in a covered wagon, roll up their sleeves, and provide an

elixir that cures everything for a price.

I mean, recover in a weekend results that last a lifetime.

No guarantees were for medicine, but they were for toasters, actually.

But in an area plagued with breeding problems, the marketing efforts work.

Patients keep coming in and bills keep going out.

In 2003, Weinberger reportedly has gross income of almost $14 million.

The nose doctor is growing rich.

As his wife will later note... Once he opened a surgery center, things exploded

financially. It became private jets.

It was like a rap video.

For an Indiana sinus surgeon, Dr. Weinberger is doing all right.

He's got a $2 .4 million condo on Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast.

He employs multiple chauffeurs, and every day he rides in a limo on the hour

-long trip to Maryville.

Some days he sends a chauffeur right back to Chicago to pick up lunch from

favorite sushi spot.

There's a $750 ,000 beachfront property in the Bahamas, trips to Asia, Europe,

and the Caribbean.

There's a $4 million 80 -foot yacht named after a part of the brain, the

cortices, and the perfect way to get to it.

Over the years, he was doing increasingly more traveling, and it

have access to a jet.

He would take, I think, at least a week off a month and they would travel and

they would go from port to port to port to, you know, all the kind of fancy

places in the Mediterranean.

He had to be the big shot. He had to be different from everyone else.

In Europe, Weinberger hires a captain for his yacht. His name is Ludovico

Clerici, a .k .a.

Lupo, Italian for wolf.

I've never seen a waste of money.

as on courtesies. We didn't have one camera, we had six cameras. We didn't

one computer, we had six computers.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

Mark was nouveau riche, I mean, but even more.

I mean, money, money, money, money.

Clarici's wife, Vera, also works on board courtesies as the Weinberger's

stewardess. She always told me that there was something wrong in the guy,

at the end of the day, I mean, she was quite right.

It's one thing for Mark to want those things. A lot of people do.

There's no crime in it.

But the crime was the way he went about obtaining those things, and that I just

never would have pegged him for.

Back in Indiana, some of Weinberger's patients go looking for a second

Many of them come to Dennis Hahn, another Maryville sinus doctor.

Their complaint?

They've had sinus surgery, but their problems haven't gotten any better.

Hahn takes his own CT scans and makes a shocking discovery.

He was lying to patients about what they needed to have done, and he wasn't

doing what...

He said he was. If they went through with the sinus surgery, usually nothing

done or very little was done. It's not what you go to your doctor for. You

expect him to blatantly lie to you just to make a buck, even if it's a huge

buck. Bill Boyer is one of the patients who goes to see Han.

I told him the surgery didn't work. And Dr. Han says, well, he actually didn't

do it. All he did was bore two holes in your skull.

I was floored.

Hahn looks at Boyer's preoperative CT scans.

They appear normal.

There's nothing to indicate he ever needed surgery.

What's more, Boyer's attorneys tell him something about the images Weinberger

used to convince him he should have the operation.

They weren't mine.

Weinberger would use canned images.

They would not be images of the patients. They would be images of a

nasal disease, with polyps, a person who needed surgery.

But selling unnecessary surgeries is only part of Weinberger's alleged scam.

CT scans taken after supposed surgery show that the nose doc isn't actually

doing the operations he's charging for.

In some cases, he's putting patients under and doing nothing at all.

In other cases, he's doing an easy and outmoded type of sinus surgery.

He drilled holes in my skull.

That was it. I have two holes drilled in my skull, and they're still there

today.

Boyer's attorneys dubbed these holes left in their client's skull the brand

Dr. Weinberger.

Now I'm worse. I'm constantly on medications now.

To dispute this, Weinberger's lawyers eventually consider calling Dr. David

Caldarelli as a defense witness.

They change their mind after his explosive deposition.

In it, he says Weinberger could only have performed the many complex

he charges Boyer for, surgeries he claims to perform in just 24 minutes, if

used a hand grenade or had 12 hands.

Despite never needing and never getting the sign of surgery he was promised,

Boyer and his insurer get stuck with huge bills.

Surgery 825.

Surgery 825.

Surgery 2700.

Surgery, $2 ,700.

Surgery, $2 ,600.

That's what he billed my insurance company.

Boyer and other patients also say they get billed for multiple return visits

cleanup procedures.

One patient claims his visits took only 60 seconds, and he got a bill for $700.

Investigators will see this same story repeated time and time again.

Weinberger ran a surgery mill.

And this surgery mill was, uh...

A cash call for him.

When American Greed returns, Dr. Weinberger's alleged mistreatment of

comes under the microscope.

He didn't give her any regard as either a patient or a human being.

Facing millions of malpractice claims, the nose doctor plots escape with

surgical precision.

It's the summer of 2004.

An Indiana sinus surgeon, Mark Weinberger, is living like a rock star.

But some of his patients have gone in search of a second opinion.

The scam that's funding his big shot lifestyle is about to unravel.

What I started to see was people with normal sinuses, with no actual sinus

problems, being told they needed sinus surgery.

If they went through with the sinus surgery, usually nothing was done or

little was done, but they had humongous bills.

Lawsuits start rolling in. By June 2004, four patients have already filed

medical malpractice complaints against Weinberger.

One of these is on behalf of Phyllis Barnes.

After the surgery, her voice really sounded a lot worse. And I said, have

talked to him or gone to see him again? You know, because you sound like you're

getting worse instead of better.

And she said that she had tried to talk to him and that he laughed and said,

give it time.

Barnes listens to her doctor, but her condition continues to deteriorate.

She's having trouble breathing and says that Weinberger offers little help to

figure out why.

He really lost all interest in any kind of follow -up care because that wasn't

what he was making money on.

Barnes goes to Weinberger for one last time on November 19, 2001.

Less than three weeks later, she visits Dr. Dennis Hahn by just listening to the

sound of her labored breathing.

Han realizes Barnes is suffering from something much worse than sinus

He looks at her voice box, then tells her she has stage four throat cancer.

I can't see how a board -certified ENT could have missed it.

I just think he didn't care.

I mean, he was so concerned with the sinus scan that he didn't give her any

regard as either a patient or a human being.

By the time it's discovered, Barnes' cancer is starting to spread. Her

of survival are slim.

She has her voice box removed and a stoma put in.

And her voice changes drastically, but Barnes continues her job as a social

worker. And as she testifies in a video deposition taken in her suit, she never

stops thinking about her daughter, Sean.

As long as I'm able to put her into school, and she can become, you know,

do as well as I think she will do in life.

I just want to be able to live and see those things happen.

Barnes' malpractice claim against Weinberger is just one of 358 that

will eventually file against him.

Estimates of potential damages will grow to reach $100 million.

Weinberger's perfect world is collapsing in on itself. At home, he offers his

wife an excuse for his growing legal problems.

I came in here, I blew everyone else out of the water. I've done everything

right, I've done nothing wrong.

They're just jealous.

And there are signs that Dr. Weinberger is getting ready to go into the wild.

He spends more and more of his workday in a part of the clinic employees dub

scary room.

He would sit in there for long periods at a time, and they would go in and they

would find, you know, all this...

weird outdoor gear, which is not the kind of thing that you would expect an

from Merrillville to collect.

The room is filled with European travel guides, sleeping bags, water filtration

systems, thermal underwear, and enough other camping gear to tackle Everest.

That summer, strange visitors show up at the clinic in a limo.

Turns out they probably were Hasidic Jews from the diamond district in New

And the speculation is he was trading cash for diamonds because it's much

to travel in Europe with diamonds than it is with cash.

What kind of procedure is the doctor preparing for?

It won't be long until his wife, his patients, and the whole world find out.

In August 2004, Weinberger and his now pregnant wife head to Greece.

Clarici says the nose doc is buying more diamonds there and appears to have a

lot on his mind.

He was often drunk.

I mean, we were finding bottles of Ouzo everywhere in the laundry, in the engine

room. It started to be really, really, really strange.

Weinberger asks Clarici for some help.

He and Michelle will be returning to Greece the next month for her 30th

birthday. He was looking to buy a small sailing boat for Michelle as presents.

The plan was to make a surprise.

Weinberger also gets Clarice to help him stockpile cash on board the yacht.

The captain's wife, Vera, smells a rat.

My wife was always telling me, he's doing something.

I mean, watch out. And I was just like, ah, you are a woman. I mean, always

thinking bad about everything. And she was just like, no, no, no, no, no.

Back in Indiana, Weinberger finds that more rough waters lie ahead.

Michelle miscarries.

One insurance provider cuts the amount that they will reimburse Weinberger.

Attorneys request the records of 18 more patients, making it clear that more

lawsuits are on their way.

Then, Phyllis Barnes takes a turn for the worse.

Sean called me one morning at 6 .30 in the morning and said, Mom can't breathe.

So I said, well, call 911, and I raced over there.

Peggy arrives at the house.

Moments later, she sees her sister carried out by paramedics.

I remember she looked at the house, and she had such fear in her face, and you

really felt like she believed she was never going to see that house again, and

she didn't.

She ended up dying from spread of the cancer to her lungs.

If it had been caught earlier, obviously that could have been prevented.

He had an opportunity to maybe make this all completely different.

He completely failed her.

Days before Barnes' death, Weinberger sends Clarice a large suitcase.

The captain says he must open it to get it into the boat's engine room. Inside,

he finds that it doesn't exactly contain birthday presents.

GPS, satellite mobile,

I mean, stuff to go hiking, I mean, to stay in the mountain for a long time,

really for a party.

And of course my wife was just like,

ah, ah, ah, I told you something wrong here.

On September 19th, Phyllis Barnes' obituary runs in the Northwest Indiana

The next day, Dr. Weinberger and his wife are back in Mykonos, where they

their 80 -foot yacht.

They're supposed to be celebrating Michelle's 30th birthday.

And when American Greed returns, the nose doctor gives his wife a surprise

she'll never forget.

It was supposed to be, like, one of the best trips of my life, and it turned out

to be a nightmare.

Throughout the summer of 2004, legal pressure mounts against Indiana sinus

surgeon Mark Weinberger.

It's alleged he's been convincing patients they need unnecessary

When he gets them on the OR table, he's doing nothing, or in some cases, just

punching holes in their skulls.

He's bringing in close to $5 million a year, but his alleged scam is in danger

of being exposed.

In September, Weinberger heads to Greece for his wife's 30th birthday.

Once there, he boards his 80 -foot yacht, which is carrying a secret

full of outdoor survival equipment and thousands of euros.

Michel's birthday party gets underway, and the night of September 20th, the

Weinbergers fall asleep aboard the courtesies.

As I was falling asleep, he said, you know, I love you, best friends never

each other, we clinked our wedding rings together, something that we did on

occasion. The nose doc promises his wife a special surprise, something only

movie stars have.

And when Michelle gets up the next morning, he's delivered, leaving her

plot twist straight out of a Hollywood movie.

He's gone.

I felt the bed next to me and just assumed that he went jogging, but in my

I knew something was wrong.

Mark Weinberger has gone to the Mykonos Airport to board his jet for Paris.

He tells his taxi driver he's going there to have diamonds set by a jeweler

Michelle. Captain Clarici and his wife Vera find out what the good doctor is

carrying, a huge suitcase full of camping gear.

Immediately, they realize what's going on.

And then Vera just punched me and said, well, no.

Who is right? And I was just like, okay, the guy is gone.

Weinberger never returns.

I told Michelle, listen, Mark is gone, and he's not coming

back. She was like, what are you saying? She couldn't understand. She was

totally out of her mind.

Michelle eventually finds and calls the number of a Greek cell phone her husband

has been using.

And he answered, and he was in a very jaunty mood. He was in a very good mood,

and she said, Mark?

And there was pretty much dead silence on the phone. No explanation. No, I'm

sorry. No, I had to do this. No, I'm in trouble.

No, I love you. He hung up.

In the weeks and months to come, Michelle attempts to track down her

She finds credit card statements and sees that he spent 50 grand in the

Riviera.

But the trail fizzles out.

And in December 2004, three months after her husband's disappearance, Michelle

files for divorce.

A year later, her gas has been cut off and she files for bankruptcy.

What's worse, Michelle has co -signed the mortgage for the Chicago condo, the

yacht.

and the property in the Bahamas.

In all, her husband has left her $6 .8 million in debt.

She's a tough woman, but I think he really ravaged her heart.

Michelle isn't the only one who's gotten the raw deal.

Weinberger never repays $5 .7 million in business loans.

The clinic, without a doctor, quickly descends into chaos, and a judge

a receiver.

In October 2004, attorney Robert Handler begins to sift through the wreckage.

This was not a typical doctor's office. This was not a typical business office.

He purchased raw diamonds, and we saw the receipts for that.

This is not something that a medical practice would normally buy, much less

business other than a jeweler.

Handler looks closely at the books and sees just how much Weinberger was

bringing in.

He had net income for himself of about $5 million.

A good surgeon should be able to net perhaps maybe a million dollars.

Five million is beyond the pale.

Eventually, Handler auctions off Weinberger's medical practice, but many

debts go unsettled.

His mother and father, who gave him a million dollars to start the clinic,

get repaid.

Like Michelle, Fred Weinberger declares bankruptcy.

This is a guy who only cares about himself.

He stiffs his own father.

He stiffs his own father.

In May 2005, Indiana's Medical Licensing Board revokes Dr.

Weinberger's license.

During the hearing, Jim Holden lays out the case.

He would encourage patients to undergo surgeries that were unnecessary.

He would bill the insurance companies for procedures that he did not perform.

Or if he did perform a procedure, it was usually a simple outmoded procedure,

and then he would bill the insurance company for the larger, more complex

procedure.

Then, in December 2006, more than two years after his disappearance...

A federal grand jury indicts Weinberger on 22 criminal counts of medical

insurance fraud.

A warrant is issued for his arrest, and his name is added to an Interpol list of

fugitives.

But where is Mark Weinberger?

When American Greed returns, it will be almost three more years until the world

finds out.

I was like, yes, we got it.

And then I was kind of like, what is wrong with this guy?

So I was like, all right.

Courmayeur, Italy lies beneath the towering heights of Mont Blanc.

It's more than 4 ,400 miles and a world away from Maryville, Indiana, where Dr.

Mark Weinberger perpetrated his alleged health care scam.

It's an outdoor playground for Europe's rich.

After years on the run, it seems like the right place at the right time for

Weinberger, who it's believed shows up here sometime in 2007.

I don't think he really felt a lot of pressure that he was being hunted. I

think he felt like the fugitive.

I mean, I think what happened is he fell in love.

Who's your girlfriend?

Monica. She came up here from... Ciao.

Monica Spiconia runs

a small grocery store in Courmayeur.

Weinberger rents an apartment down a set of stairs near her shop.

We met in 2007, in the winter of 2007.

He was simply a client. He came to buy fruit, milk.

Weinberger says it was chance that brought him here.

He told me he had pointed his finger at a map and that he randomly landed on

Courmayeur. The once flashy playboy has traded in the luxury brands he preferred

for outdoor wear.

And he has a new attitude about wealth and the rich tourists he sees in

Courmayeur.

Mark and I, we made fun of them, referring to them as... Gucci and Prada.

Monica uses her cell phone to document outings in the Alps with Weinberger.

It's here that their friendship blossoms.

Watch the Mont Blanc.

Amazing.

And us.

Ciao. Ciao.

Monica knows her American friend as Mark Stern.

He tells her he was once a Wall Street stockbroker. He says he made enough

to start a new life.

Their relationship moved into a new phase on Valentine's Day 2009.

We went out to dinner, and then there was, it's obvious what there was.

So there, from that Valentine's Day, well, Mark profoundly entered my heart.

was remarkable.

Are you happy? I'm happy, baby.

The couple grows closer, and in September, Weinberger tells Monica about

plan he's launching.

He told me, listen, Monica, I don't want this thing to appear crazy.

I don't want it to appear insane or even stupid.

But I have an idea.

And my idea is to live one year at roughly 2 ,000 meters in a tent to write

book on how you can survive in the mountains.

Weinberger begins living in an area known as Val Ferre.

This is my little city I started building.

Yeah.

Okay, so this is base camp here, and that is the planned

expansion over there.

So the city is growing a little.

That fall, the former big spender abandons his apartment and stops paying

Before long, people start to ask questions.

I received a phone call from my friend.

who said, listen, Mark is not who he says he is.

He was wanted by the FBI.

Shocked, Monica accompanies her boyfriend back to his campsite.

He gave me his real name, Mark Weinberger, because, well, he always

himself as Mark Stern.

Anyway, well, I went to go look on the Internet for Mark Weinberger.

Weinberger's name is on an Interpol database, and Monica finds him profiled

the last place one hopes to find their partner, the website of America's Most

Wanted.

Reeling, she goes to the Carabinieri, Italy's national police.

I'm sorry, because I'm sorry, but it had to be done. He has to pay for what he

did, and there is no doubt.

The Carabinieri are tipped off twice.

When Weinberger stops paying rent, a rental agent brings a copy of his

to the authorities.

His name shows up on an Interpol database, and again on the America's

Wanted website.

On December 15th, a search party heads out on a cold day to bring in this

American fugitive.

The Carabinieri track him down outside his tent in Valparais.

Nearby, this man was walking around, and then, when we asked him who he was, he

answered that his name was Mark Weinberger.

The Carabinieri say they have to bring him in to check his ID.

Even then, he doesn't seem to get that his years on the run are coming to an

end.

In fact, I remember he asked the person that drove us with the snowmobile if

later it would have been possible to get a ride back.

But this is to be a one -way trip to the police barracks in Courmayeur.

And when he gets there, it seems Weinberger's time in the wilderness has

him yearning for a taste of the good life.

We had a larger table than there was such here.

He ate a dish of pasta with us, our wine. He was very hungry.

Everything disappeared in his dish.

Weinberger appears to finally understand that the game is over, but he has one

more trick up his sleeve.

He goes to the bathroom and takes out a knife he has secreted away.

The man who once made millions as an ear, nose, and throat specialist tries

cut his own throat and fails.

He wasn't a very good doctor in real life, so he wasn't a very good doctor

trying to commit suicide.

Next on American Greed.

Mark Weinberger returns to the United States to face justice.

It makes it easier, knowing that she died of cancer, but this man isn't going

hurt anyone anymore.

In December 2009, Italian police arrest Dr. Mark Weinberger near his tent in the

Italian Alps.

After a failed suicide attempt, he is taken to a hospital in Turin, Italy.

There's an arrest warrant out for him on 22 counts of health insurance fraud.

And it's not long before Weinberger is extradited back to the U .S. and into

U .S. District Court in Hammond, Indiana.

For the recording, are you Dr.

Mark S. Weinberger?

Yes. Do you have money in any accounts anywhere?

No.

Weinberger is appointed an attorney. He listens as a lawyer from the U .S.

Attorney's Office reads the charges against him.

Specifically, you would bill private health benefit providers for procedures

costing between $16 ,740 and $2 ,600.

that were not, in fact, performed on various private health benefit

Do you want me to run through each? I understand what they're alleging. Okay.

On March 4, 2010, Weinberger returns to court and pleads not guilty.

Months later, prosecutors offer him a deal.

He'll plead guilty to all 22 counts of medical insurance fraud.

In exchange, he'll do four years in jail and pay restitution.

But in April 2011, a judge rejects the plea deal, saying that it doesn't

for the full scope of Weinberger's fraud.

Victims tend to agree.

I think he should have to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I think it stinks.

I don't like it.

After the judge's decision, Weinberger withdraws his guilty plea.

Weinberger is up against more than just criminal charges.

He is still facing hundreds of malpractice claims.

In August 2010, a jury awards Bill Boyer $300 ,000.

Then in March 2011, the case of Phyllis Barnes, who was told she needed sinus

surgery when she really had cancer, goes to trial.

A jury awards her estate $13 million.

Having Dr. Weinberger finally put on trial gives her

memory a sort of positive spin because I know that even though she's not here

anymore, this man isn't going to hurt anyone anymore.

Hundreds more patients, each a name on a file at the Indiana Department of

Insurance, await a day in court.

According to the FBI...

Healthcare fraud costs the U .S. $60 billion a year.

But what is the cost when a doctor violates the trust implicit in the

-patient relationship?

It's absolutely essential to be confident and comfortable and trusting

physician that he's going to do the right thing.

I'm not a medical doctor, you know. I can't say whether this is wrong with me

that's wrong with me. You have to rely on what...

Your physician says, is he telling me the whole story?

Is he right?

You don't know.

And in the end, everyone is left wondering, what went wrong in the case

nose doctor?

How did the once promising doctor end up depicted on a carnivali float after

five years on the run?

The Hippocratic Oath meant nothing to him.

It was about making money. I think he probably was a good doctor.

And I think that's even sadder.

He could have had a wonderful life and a great career and made plenty of money

if he had just been a good doctor.

And he threw that away.