Neurosurgeon Gets 180 Days in Wife’s Death From Drug

A San Fernando Valley neurosurgeon who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and illegally prescribing large doses of a painkiller drug that led to his addict wife’s overdose death was sentenced Friday to serve 180 days in Los Angeles County Jail.

Dr. Stephen M. Levine, 42, also was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to perform 2,000 hours of community medical service in the May 12, 1984, death of his wife, Myrna, at the couple’s Tarzana home.

Levine’s brother, Dr. David Levine, 43, an orthopedist who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in Myrna Levine’s death, was sentenced to one year’s probation, fined $2,500 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Stephen Levine had originally been charged with one count of murder and 44 felony counts of illegally prescribing the drug Demerol. But, in a March 6 plea bargain that allowed him to avoid a state prison term, he was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser involuntary manslaughter charge and five counts of prescribing drugs illegally. He faced a maximum term of one year in Los Angeles County Jail.

Initial Charges

David Levine was at first charged with three counts of being an accessory after the fact to murder and to violations of the health and safety codes, but, on March 6, he was permitted to plead guilty to a single health code violation of being an accessory after the fact.

The crimes to which Stephen Levine pleaded guilty could carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. David Levine could have faced a maximum three-year sentence.

But David Levine was promised no more than six months in jail and Stephen was promised no more than a year. Prosecutors said they agreed to reduce the penalties because the doctors had no previous criminal records and were respected by other surgeons.

With time off for good behavior and work credits, Stephen Levine could serve as few as 120 days, according to his attorney, Gerson S. Horn.

Superior Court Judge Robert Fainer called Stephen Levine “a tragic figure” and commented, “I have no doubt that he is a kind and loving father, a decent human being and a fine, dedicated doctor. But, I think he must serve a jail sentence.”

Wrote 225 Prescriptions

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Dawson said Stephen Levine secured the drug Demerol for his addict wife by writing more than 225 prescriptions under a fictitious name and address. After Myrna Levine died, David Levine signed her death certificate, falsely listing the cause of death as cardiac arrest, prosecutors alleged.

An investigation into the death began after the dead woman’s sister and brother went to police with several empty Demerol bottles. An autopsy performed at the request of police found no trace of disease in Myrna Levine’s body but did detect a level of Demerol 24 to 48 times the amount that would be present under normal medical conditions.

The coroner’s office also found extensive scarring and multiple puncture wounds typical of prolonged and extensive narcotics use, according to police documents.

The brothers, both of whom now live in Studio City, were partners in a Chatsworth industrial medicine clinic and operated individual private practices in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Stephen Levine was on the staff at several hospitals, including Cedars-Sinai and Brotman Memorial.

Nearly 50 friends and colleagues of the two doctors packed the small downtown courtroom to show support for the two doctors, applauding as the judge handed down David Levine’s sentence. Several women sobbed when Stephen Levine was sentenced. Afterwards, they formed a phalanx around Stephen Levine, who appeared shaken. Both brothers declined to comment to reporters.

In a letter to the court about his wife’s death, Levine said, “I sincerely regret that I was too blind to save her from this tragic end.”

Horn said his client was a “brilliant brain surgeon who was completely and throughly naive when it came to his wife, whom he loved very much.”

Myrna Levine was a “powerful woman” who “thoroughly manipulated” her husband into believing that the Demerol prescriptions he supplied her were for her dying father, Horn said.

Myrna Levine told her husband that she was the illegitimate daughter of a member of the wealthy Du Rothschild family, he said. She told her husband that her father was using the name Robert Kaufman to avoid publicity, Horn said.

Used False Name

Stephen Levine procured the prescriptions under the name Robert Kaufman and used the address of a Beverly Hills house that had been unoccupied for several years, police and prosecutors said.

But Dawson, the prosecutor, argued in papers filed with the court that it was preposterous to believe that Stephen Levine, a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Howard University Medical School, was deceived by his wife, who Dawson said was an eighth grade dropout.

Dawson cited as a “smoking gun” a fictitious medical file created by Stephen Levine after investigators threatened to serve a search warrant on his medical offices after his wife’s death. The falsified file contained Kaufman’s weight, pulse rate and blood pressure and recorded two house calls made to Kaufman’s residence, despite later admissions by Stephen Levine that he had never met Kaufman, according to documents filed by the prosecutor.

Horn called Stephen Levine’s attempts to create a fictitious file “a naive, infantile and childish attempt by a man who saw his life going down the tubes.”

Asks ‘Consideration’

Citing a stack of letters written to the judge by friends and supporters, Horn argued that Stephen Levine deserved “special consideration. He’s a good and gentle man who would be destroyed utterly if he was incarcerated,” Horn said.

“Are good deeds and services that are done over a lifetime to be cast away because of one tragic mistake?” Horn asked.

Horn argued that his client had already been amply punished by losing his reputation, income and wife. He has shamed his family and suffered humiliation, Horn said.

Fainer said he would recommend to the Board of Medical Quality Assurance that both brothers be disciplined but not suspended.

“It’s my understanding that we have taken a very great interest in the Levine matter,” said Ken Wagstaff, executive director of the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, which is responsible for licensing and disciplining the state’s physicians.

“When a physician is found guilty of a crime which endangers or ends a human life, a substantial question is raised as to the fitness of that physician to practice medicine. Obviously, we’re going to take the judge’s findings into account but I think that we have a responsibility to do our own review,” Wagstaff said in a telephone interview from Sacramento.

Various Options Listed

Options open to the board include issuing a reprimand, placing a doctor on probation, permanently revoking or temporarily suspending the license to practice, or ordering that limitations be placed on the doctor’s practice, such as requiring supervision by another physician. A hearing before an adminstrative law judge would be required before any such actions could be taken, Wagstaff said.

The judge said Stephen Levine should be placed, if possible, in a program that would make use of his medical training. If the doctor is able to maintain his medical license and the appropriate medical liability coverage is available, he should work in the County USC-Medical Center Jail ward, Fainer said.

Fainer stayed execution of the sentence for one week so that Levine, the father of two young children, could take care of personal and professional matters.

Fainer asked David Levine to care for Stephen Levine’s daughters, Danielle, 5, and Gabrielle, 4, while their father is in jail.