Photo: JOSEPH PREZIOSO / AFP / Getty Images
The doctor. William Husel was tried on 14 charges of murder, as prosecutors said he killed patients under his care as a doctor at the intensive care unit in Cincinnati.
Prosecutors alleged that Husel had ordered potentially lethal amounts of fentanyl and other drugs from ICU patients between 2015 and 2018.
A jury of seven women and five men found Husel not guilty on Wednesday after approximately six days of deliberations.
Husel, from 46 years, was originally charged with 04 murder charges in 2019, but 11 of the 25 charges were dismissed at the request of prosecutors before is that the trial began in January.
The case was reportedly limited to patients who were “prescribed in excess” fentanyl, who received 500 micrograms or more before death.
Husel’s attorney, José Báez, said during the trial that his client was simply trying to minimize the pain of his patients as they died and that the Cincinnati hospital did not place limits on dose of fentanyl.
Báez also stated that Husel’s patients died because their ventilators were removed.
“There is no such thing as a medical murder case,” Baez said in his opening arguments, according to the Daily Beast.
“This is not a murder case, and far from it.
“William Husel was exercising compassion for his patients and tried to free them from pain and let your last mo moments on Earth were of peace.”
According to reports, around 53 Witnesses testified against Husel, including nurses and pharmacists who previously worked with him, as well as family members of the victims.
Husel, who turned down a plea deal in February, faced the possibility of life in prison for the 11 murder charges.
Husel’s wife, nurse Mariah Baird, was present throughout the trial, despite being named in a lawsuit by wrongful death filed by the family of a victim.
Baird administered a dose of fentanyl from 800 micrograms to Jan Thomas, aged 46 years old , at 2015 by order of Husel, according to medical records.
Thomas, who had had a spill multiembolic brain disease, died less than an hour later.
Thomas’s family filed the lawsuit in 2019, alleging that Husel was to blame for the woman’s death.
The doctor was fired from Mount Carmel West Hospital in December 2018, and the Franklin County District Attorney and the Ohio State Medical Board were notified of their actions.
The Ohio State Medical Board suspended Husel’s license in 2019 before he was turned over for be arrested and charged with murder. Husel filed a defamation lawsuit against Mount Carmel Medical System in December 2019, claiming that the “false accusations destroyedlifetime”.
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