Doc Blames Split Personalities for Rx Fraud

A doctor involved in a $300,000 prescription painkiller scheme is trying to get out of an 11-year prison sentence by claiming that "Nala"—one of over a dozen of her multiple personalities—was responsible for the crime. Diana Williamson was once lauded for opening an AIDS hospital and her treatment work in the field, but the government claims she defrauded Medicaid out of about $300,000 and then wrote phony prescriptions for around 11,000 painkiller pills, mostly oxycodone, that were bought with Medicaid benefits and sold on the street. Williamson pleaded guilty, but her lawyer argues that a prison sentence would be equivalent to a death sentence due to her several medical issues that prisons aren't equipped to treat. The defense also claims that Williamson wasn't aware she was carrying out crimes committed by her “mischievous, irresponsible, reckless and, as we have just discovered, criminal" alter ego. Williamson wrote to the judge that Nala “committed these crimes without telling Diana or the other parts of me about them.” US District Judge Loretta Preska delayed sentencing so it can be determined if prison authorities will be able to treat Williamson's illnesses, but remains skeptical about the multiple personality argument: “I guess I’m having trouble understanding that with the defendant’s remarkable medical career, having founded an AIDS hospital, it doesn’t seem to have impaired her ability to function as a medical professional,” she says. Williamson argued in court, “Perhaps it sounds incredible that a part of me could be doing something that the rest of me would not know about, but everything about dissociative disorder is difficult to fathom for those who do not have it."