Former doctor faces drug charge

 A former Taylorville physician awaiting sentencing on federal fraud charges has been busted for drugs in Pawnee.

Officers were summoned to a Casey’s store in Pawnee at approximately 8:15 p.m. on Oct. 11 by bystanders who said that Dr. Vernon R. Klinefelter was stumbling around the store, disoriented and apparently intoxicated. His 1999 Mercedes automobile was in the parking lot, running, with keys in the ignition. Officers reported finding between three and four grams of cocaine in plain view inside the vehicle. They found 36 additional grams of the drug during a search that also uncovered syringes, suspected prescription drugs, two gold coins and $2,200 in cash. There are 28 grams in an ounce.

Klinefelter was charged last week with one count of manufacturing and/or delivering a controlled substance, and prosecutors are seeking to seize his car, the gold coins and the cash found in his vehicle. He has also been charged with driving under the influence. More charges are possible, pending results of laboratory tests on apparent prescription drugs found in Klinefelter’s car, said John Milhiser, Sangamon County state’s attorney.

Klinefelter, 62, faces a minimum sentence of six years if convicted as charged and would not be eligible for probation.

Klinefelter is awaiting sentencing on federal fraud charges. He was convicted last spring after a bench trial before U.S. District Court Judge Richard Mills, who found him guilty of wire fraud after determining that Klinefelter had applied for and received Social Security disability benefits while still working as a physician at Abundant Life Medical Clinic in Taylorville, which he owned with his wife, Geraldine Klinefelter, who helped her husband apply for disability benefits and was also convicted of fraud earlier this year. She, too, is awaiting sentencing. Mills found that the scheme cost the government $107,700 in benefit payments that were not deserved. Sentencing for the couple is set for Dec. 11.

Vernon Klinefelter, who had been free on personal recognizance in the federal matter, is reportedly free on bond following the incident in Pawnee. Thomas Finks, his lawyer, declined comment.

Federal prosecutors last spring allowed that Vernon Klinefelter suffered from health problems that included back maladies, a problem with seizures and a hormone disorder, but they weren’t serious enough to prevent him from seeing patients and earning well in excess of a $7,000 annual limit for recipients of federal disability payments. The judge found that Klinefelter’s wife had helped secure undeserved benefits, telling a Social Security claims representative in 2004 that her husband was so sick that he couldn’t do simple math, even though he had been elected president of the Christian County Health Board less than a week earlier. He had been a member of the board, serving as its medical director, for more than a dozen years.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation suspended Vernon Klinefelter’s license to practice medicine in 2013, after a psychiatrist he retained found that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. At the time, the state found that allowing Klinefelter to practice medicine would pose “an immediate danger” to public safety. Klinefelter ultimately stood trial after two doctors hired by prosecutors determined that he was capable of understanding the charges against him and assisting in his defense.

Geraldine Klinefelter still holds three nursing licenses from the state despite her federal fraud conviction, including an advanced nursing license that allows her to write prescriptions for controlled substances, according to the website for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].