‘I help a lot of people, talk to my patients and you will only hear satisfaction. I am not a saint, I am just a stupid [man] who decided to break the law five years ago and I am paying for it’
Juan Carlos Stapleton Rodriguez, the man accused of operating as a doctor in Lethem, told this newspaper that he fled the jurisdiction because his conviction on drug charges and fugitive status were revealed
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However, Rodriguez, who also said he recently gained residency status here, is denying that he practiced medicine at Lethem, claiming he only operated a laboratory staffed by a licensed doctor.
Last week, Stabroek News reported that Rodriguez, who had opened a practice and was treating residents, fled after he was outed as a convicted drug dealer who was on the run from former colleagues. A wanted bulletin was also issued for him in St Lucia in February of this year after he skipped bail there on fraud charges.
Rodriguez, who is now in Venezuela, contacted Stabroek News by e-mail on Tuesday and admitted that he was convicted for drug trafficking in Venezuela, for which he served two years in prison, and that he is wanted in St Lucia on “absurd” fraud charges. However, he denied that he was running from drug dealers who wanted him to pay for the drugs the authorities had seized when he was arrested. “I am not escaping from the drug dealers. When I went to jail for this crime, I was very young, it was only two pounds I put in my stomach and I was caught at the airport going to London. I owe no money to these people,” the man wrote. He added that while he is “not a victim”, he wants his side of the story to be published. “I was running a great place. I was trying to expand it, and I help a lot of people, talk to my patients and you will only hear satisfaction. I am not a saint, I am just a stupid [man] who decided to break the law five years ago and I am paying for it,” he added.
According to his conviction sheet, Rodriguez was arrested in April 2004 at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela as he was about to board a British Airways flight. He was reportedly acting nervously and it was later discovered that he had some 80 vials of cocaine in his stomach. He pleaded guilty before Justice Dr Celestina Mendez in October 2004, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He later appealed and was released from jail, he said. Before he left Lethem, Rodriguez told Elaine Foo, his landlady, that he was running from drug dealers whom he owed fifty million dollars.
A ‘real’ doctor
According to Rodriguez, he “met a [Guyanese] lady” and married her in September and based on this applied for residency here. He said his wife lives at Linden. He also claimed that he opened a laboratory at Lethem under a registered name, Translab Medical Services, and gave the registration number as 385861. He said he hired a doctor, medic and a nurse — all of whom worked full time – as well as three part-time nurses and a medic. He said the full-time staff members all signed six-month work contracts. Rodriguez maintained that he is a doctor and that he graduated from the Universidad de Oriente in 2003, the year before he was held with drugs. He said he has only practiced for a year and six months, in Venezuela and England. He denied ever touching a patient during his time in Lethem, saying he left it to his staff, who took samples from patients.
He said samples were transported to Hemolab Boa Vista and Bio Norte Boa Vista for analysis and it was the doctor on staff who made prescriptions based on test results.
Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy yesterday confirmed to Stabroek News that Rodriguez was “a real doctor” who applied for a licence through the Medical Council of Guyana last September. However, Ramsammy said, there were questions, noting that academic certificates are not the sole basis for granting a licence. He explained that the applicant must produce a certificate of good standing from the country he practised in. Rodriguez could not produce the certificate and failed to turn up to a meeting with President of the Council, Dr Galton Roberts.
Ramsammy also said he was unaware of Rodriguez setting up a lab in Lethem. He added that it was not good enough that the man was practicing in Lethem without a licence and that the regional authorities should have been more vigilant. He noted that Regional Health Officer in Region Nine, Eugene Xavier, had indicated that he had informed the Regional Executive Officer (REO) of the man’s presence in Lethem and this claim is being investigated.
Xavier had told Stabroek News this during an interview. Xavier said he had heard about Rodriguez but never met him.
He said the man forwarded a package to him with his proposal for a lab which he then sent to the REO, informing him that he knew nothing of the man. But Rodriguez challenged this, saying he and Xavier had many lunches together and his staff and Lethem residents could attest to this. He also claimed that he gave Xavier “many gifts.”
‘Nobody would
trust an ex-convict’
Rodriguez had been incarcerated in Brazil for five days. He denied that it was connected with drugs, explaining that he had issued a bad cheque in 2007 and was released after he made payment.
However, by that time his staff had found out about his previous conviction and his status as a wanted man and informed residents that he was a fake doctor. “…They told my patients all kinds of things,” Rodriguez told Stabroek News, noting that Lethem is a small place and everybody was paranoid after the news. As a result, he said, there was no way to save his business. “Despite not actually practicing but directing the practice under [the name of the doctor] supervision, my reputation was ruined,” he added, “Nobody would trust an ex-convict. After many tears I left. There are many lies around this story.”
Rodriguez also admitted that he owes three Lethem residents, all of whom he named, around $4 million, which he had borrowed from them. “After they knew about the charges in St Lucia and the charges for drugs (they never gave me the chance to explain), they wanted their money. I signed promissory notes,” he wrote.
Addressing the fraud charge in St Lucia for which an arrest warrant has been issued, Rodriguez explained that he had applied for citizenship on the island. Because his application was taking months to be processed, he said, he telephoned the authorities, pretended to be an officer and asked for an appointment in his name and it was granted. “…When I reached there, CID was waiting and charged me with fraud by false pretence, then I was admitted to bail and I simply left for England,” he said.
He was listed as being a citizen of St Vincent on the St Lucia arrest warrant, and asked to explain this Rodriguez said that his father was born in St Vincent.
