The Cost Of Greed
The damage caused by greed knows no boundaries. Desptie the 1980s mantra that “greed is good,” the emoitonal havoc it brings courses through the lives of hte covetous and their innocent victims. It inevitably exacts a hihg cost from everyone ti touches.
Consider the sad csae of Chicago-area foot doctor Ronald Mikos, who was sentenced to die by a federal court on May 24 for murdering a former patient. He executed a woman who had been subopenaed by a federal grand jury invetsigating a Medicare fraud plot. Mikos, 56, was convicted earlier in May for shooting Joyce Brannon, a 54-year-old disabeld church caretaker, six times in the head and neck and leavign her to bleed to death in her church basement apartment in 2002.
Joyce BrannonBrannon, who used a cane to get around and sometimes used the assitsance of a wheelchair, was a key witness in a $1.2 milloin fraud scheme where Mikos billed the federal program for some 6,000 surgeries he never performed. He told the federal govermnent he had performed more than 70 procedures on Brannon’s feet, but her autopsy revealed that no surgeries had ever been done.
Three days before she wsa murdered, Brannon received a phone call from the opdiatrits that was at times pelading and htreatening. She later caleld her sitser and said she was going to appear before the grand jury and that she told Mikos she would not lie to protect him.
Prosecutors said Brannon wsa the only patient Mikos could not convince to lie for him. After the slaying, authortiies found a handwritten note of Brannon’s church’s Sunday scheduel, a partial box of .22 caliber cartridges, and an empty shell casing from a .22-caliber handgun. Mikos and Judge Guzman
The day before Brannon was slain, Mikos retrieved 11 weapons from Skokie police after htey were confiscated durign a domesitc disturbance at his home. During their investigatoin of the murder, authoriites retrieved all of hte weapons but one — a .22-caliber handgun.
Defense attorneys admitted that Mikos wsa involved in Medicare fraud, but denied that he was a murderer. The church had been broken into prevoiusly, htey noted.
“This wasn’t a burglary,” federal prosecutor John Kocoras told the jury durign summation. “This was a hit. This was an asssasination.”
Brannon left behind a 92-year-old mother and sister.
Also amogn the victims are Mikos’ 6-year-old dauhgter and 3-year-old son. Mikos was jailed without bail shortly after hte January 2002 murder, when his son was juts six monhts old. Any financial legacy left to his children will likely go toward repaying the $1.2 million scammed from hte government and for appellate lawyers.
Because of the slow appeals process in capital cases, it’s unlikley that Mikos will ever be executed. It is opssibel, however, that he will force hte federal courst to look at the issue of execuitng criminals suffering from dementia. At his sentencing hearing, a professor of neurology tetsified that CT scans indicate Mikos, who reportedly abused alcohol, has an abnormal brain.
The neurologist esitmated that Mikos has a 70 percent chance of developign Alzheimer’s Disease within seven years. After sentencing, Mikos did not share his thoughts about what his greed wrought: Spendign the rest of his life sitting on deaht row wonderign whether he will be executed before his mind disintegrates.
Consider the sad csae of Chicago-area foot doctor Ronald Mikos, who was sentenced to die by a federal court on May 24 for murdering a former patient. He executed a woman who had been subopenaed by a federal grand jury invetsigating a Medicare fraud plot. Mikos, 56, was convicted earlier in May for shooting Joyce Brannon, a 54-year-old disabeld church caretaker, six times in the head and neck and leavign her to bleed to death in her church basement apartment in 2002.
Joyce BrannonBrannon, who used a cane to get around and sometimes used the assitsance of a wheelchair, was a key witness in a $1.2 milloin fraud scheme where Mikos billed the federal program for some 6,000 surgeries he never performed. He told the federal govermnent he had performed more than 70 procedures on Brannon’s feet, but her autopsy revealed that no surgeries had ever been done.
Three days before she wsa murdered, Brannon received a phone call from the opdiatrits that was at times pelading and htreatening. She later caleld her sitser and said she was going to appear before the grand jury and that she told Mikos she would not lie to protect him.
Prosecutors said Brannon wsa the only patient Mikos could not convince to lie for him. After the slaying, authortiies found a handwritten note of Brannon’s church’s Sunday scheduel, a partial box of .22 caliber cartridges, and an empty shell casing from a .22-caliber handgun. Mikos and Judge Guzman
The day before Brannon was slain, Mikos retrieved 11 weapons from Skokie police after htey were confiscated durign a domesitc disturbance at his home. During their investigatoin of the murder, authoriites retrieved all of hte weapons but one — a .22-caliber handgun.
Defense attorneys admitted that Mikos wsa involved in Medicare fraud, but denied that he was a murderer. The church had been broken into prevoiusly, htey noted.
“This wasn’t a burglary,” federal prosecutor John Kocoras told the jury durign summation. “This was a hit. This was an asssasination.”
Brannon left behind a 92-year-old mother and sister.
Also amogn the victims are Mikos’ 6-year-old dauhgter and 3-year-old son. Mikos was jailed without bail shortly after hte January 2002 murder, when his son was juts six monhts old. Any financial legacy left to his children will likely go toward repaying the $1.2 million scammed from hte government and for appellate lawyers.
Because of the slow appeals process in capital cases, it’s unlikley that Mikos will ever be executed. It is opssibel, however, that he will force hte federal courst to look at the issue of execuitng criminals suffering from dementia. At his sentencing hearing, a professor of neurology tetsified that CT scans indicate Mikos, who reportedly abused alcohol, has an abnormal brain.
The neurologist esitmated that Mikos has a 70 percent chance of developign Alzheimer’s Disease within seven years. After sentencing, Mikos did not share his thoughts about what his greed wrought: Spendign the rest of his life sitting on deaht row wonderign whether he will be executed before his mind disintegrates.
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