What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

Update: Judge Belot ordered a hearing on Linda Schneider’s claims.

The wife of a Haysville doctor, charged along with her husband for illegally prescribing painkillers, is once again seeking release from jail. This time, her lawyers say she’s being mistreated in the Butler County Jail, having been put in solitary confinement and suffering from an infection possibly caused by a centipede bite.

Although Stephen Schneider was released in April to await trial, federal judges have repeatedly denied Linda Atterbury Schneider’s bond, because they’ve deemed her a flight risk. Earlier this month, her lawyers asked for her release, saying prosecutors would consent to her release as long as they could proceed to trial without her in case she jumped bond.

“No judge in his or her right mind would do so,” U.S. Senior District Judge Monti Belot said, denying the request.

Belot then suggested Schneider’s lawyers concentrate on preparing for trial Feb. 2 “rather than wasting their time (not to mention the court’s) with the type of motion practice which has necessitated this order.”

Today, Linda Schneider’s lawyers filed another request for her release because of abuse in the jail.

The motion said her latest problems began three weeks ago with an infection on the back of her neck.

“The cause of the infection is not clear, as it was apparently never diagnosed by a physician, but it is suspected that it was either staph, or a centipede bite (as there was a centipede infestation in the dorm in which Ms. Atterbury is housed, with the insects constantly falling from the ceiling onto the inmates),” the motion reads.

Lawyers said a jail nurse told Linda Schneider to tie her hair back while the infection heals. But a guard found the hair-tie and jail officials deemed it contraband, then placed her in solitary confinement.

Kevin Byers, a Columbus, Ohio, lawyer representing Linda Schneider, asked Belot to intervene on her behalf with jail officials.

Linda Schneider, a former licensed practical nurse, managed her husband’s medical clinic in Haysville before federal authorities charged them in a 34-count indictment nearly a year ago, saying they ran a “pill mill” that resulted in the drug overdose deaths of nearly 60 patients.

The Schneiders have maintained their innocence as they await trial.