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news-press.com
Bay County examiner fighting to keep
job Ruling controversial in boot-camp death
July 16, 2007
By Stephen D. Price
PANAMA CITY — Bay County medical
examiner Dr. Charles Siebert, fired June 13, is still on the job and
determined to stay there despite the political firestorm surrounding
him and his work.
He has been appointed temporarily
by his chief supporter, State Attorney Steve Meadows, who openly
disputes the findings of the Medical Examiners Commission that voted
to dismiss Siebert.
“Nobody is perfect,” said Siebert,
45. “I’m getting attacked for mistakes that everybody’s making, but
I’m being singled out.”
Siebert intends to fight to keep
his job against evidence of inaccuracy in his work and charges that
he violated state law in his autopsy of Martin Lee Anderson. His
examination concluded Anderson died of natural causes. The teen died
Jan. 6, 2006, the day after surveillance video showed him being
kneed, pinned to the ground, forced to breathe ammonia capsules and
forcibly marched around an exercise yard by drill instructors at a
Bay County juvenile boot camp.
Siebert adamantly disputes the
findings of a subsequent autopsy that found Anderson suffocated to
death.
It’s a dispute that Meadows said
will be settled by the Oct. 3 criminal trial of seven drill
instructors and one nurse from the boot camp, charged with felony
aggravated manslaughter of a child. The judge in that trial has
already indicated there may be difficulty seating a jury in Bay
County, where support for the accused and Siebert both run high.
At court dates and news
conferences, organized groups of Siebert backers show up in
solidarity.
Elsewhere around the state, the Bay
County medical examiner since 2003 is more of a lightning rod.
Siebert determined 14-year-old Anderson died from complications of a
blood disorder, sickle-cell trait, a finding that set a match to the
fuse of the political powderkeg of Anderson’s case, with protest
marches on the Capitol that included the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse
Jackson and lawmakers calling for criminal charges.
Those pressures in part led to
State Attorney Mark Ober being named a special prosecutor in the
case by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, an exhumation of Anderson’s body and a
second autopsy being performed by Hillsborough medical examiner Dr.
Vernard Adams.
Adams concluded Anderson had his
mouth clamped shut by drill instructors, was forced to breathe
ammonia and suffocated.
Siebert dismisses criticisms
against him and said the trial will vindicate him. Among the
findings and allegations lined up against him:
A Medical Examiners Commission
investigation concluded he could not have examined Anderson as
described in his autopsy report, part of findings it said
constituted probable cause Siebert has violated state law.
On June 13, the commission voted to
fire Siebert, a move not final until he has a hearing to defend
himself, which he plans to do.
State Attorney Meadows said Siebert
is a victim of “character assassination.”
Meadows reappointed Siebert on an
interim basis beginning July 1, while a search committee looks for a
permanent replacement.
That appointment has led to a
political showdown between the state attorney and the commission
that oversees medical examiners. Its chairman, Dr. Stephen Nelson,
said the move is “being researched by our general counsel” to
determine the commission’s options.
Meadows said no one has proved
Siebert did anything wrong and that the embattled medical examiner
hasn’t had a chance to defend himself.
Closer looks have revealed problems
for the man who came to Florida for a fellowship for then chief
medical examiner in Miami-Dade County, Joseph Davis.
After the fellowship, Siebert was
hired as an assistant medical examiner, and worked his way around
the state in Palm Beach County and Pinellas County, rising in both
to deputy medical examiner before coming to Bay County as its chief
in 2003.
A Medical Examiners Commission
audit of Siebert’s work in Bay County cited an autopsy on a woman in
which he described in a report “the prostate gland and testes are
unremarkable.”
Siebert said it was a clerical
error — two reports got typed on top of each other. Last year’s
investigation said Siebert was “energetic, hard working and
diligent,” but added that his work lacked accuracy and detail.
Siebert, who makes about $200,000
annually, said the community supports him — but he isn’t digging
roots in Panama City.
“I’ve looked elsewhere (for work),”
said Siebert.
Siebert said his critics are part
of a political network formed against him because his Anderson
autopsy is “not one that fits the agenda of people that obviously
want these guards prosecuted.”
Gov. Charlie Crist and the
Legislature awarded Anderson’s family $5 million in a settlement
earlier this year.
Siebert said Adams’s autopsy was
not only wrong, but “I think it is impossible . . . The ammonia
capsule, it doesn’t replace oxygen. It doesn’t stop you from
breathing.”
Dr. Edward Klatt, a professor of
pathology at Florida State University with no ties to the case,
disagreed. He said the ammonia capsules could change breathing
patterns, making it easier to suffocate, and block oxygen.
Moreover, Klatt said cases of death
from sickle cell trait are extremely rare and it’s most often used
as a cause of death when no other reason can be found.
In May another investigation by a
Medical Examiners Commission probable cause panel concluded Siebert
didn’t examine all he said he had in the Anderson autopsy, and found
four counts where he violated two state statutes — misrepresenting
information upon an opinion as medical examiner, and negligence.
For example, the panel’s report
said in the Anderson autopsy Siebert described the boy’s thyroid
gland as “red-brown and not enlarged,” as part of his overall
examination.
But according to Adams, who did the
second Anderson autopsy, the thyroid gland was obscured by
still-attached muscles and he said, “Dr. Siebert could not have
viewed the thyroid to determine its coloration.”
Siebert said those muscles covered
the top of the thyroid, but not the sides which he viewed.
The FSU professor, Klatt, said,
“those muscles have to be taken away for the thyroid gland to be
seen.”
Siebert’s dismissal after the
probable-cause finding was an escalation of the commission’s charges
against Siebert. In January, without admitting any wrongdoing,
Siebert agreed to have his work reviewed by Dr. Barbara Wolf, a
deputy medical examiner based in Fort Myers, as part of a probation
agreement.
In a May 23 commission meeting some
members were upset at Siebert for “bucking authority,” and not
cooperating with Wolf. They voted not to renew his contract.
Siebert said he is confident he
will persuade his detractors in the administrative hearing, and that
the criminal trial will prove he was right about Anderson’s autopsy.
Meadows chairs the search committee
to find a permanent medical examiner for District 14, and said he
will not rule out Siebert as a possible nominee.
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