This ‘justice’ is not fit to stand a trial

By Bob Bennett
Special to The Daily News

Published January 16, 2007

On Nov. 8, Daniel Yeh, the owner of the Flagship Hotel, surrendered to the Federal Medical Center, a Bureau of Prisons facility, in Butner, N.C., as ordered by U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent.

Since December, when armed federal agents entered his home and seized his computers and business records, Yeh’s defense team has proclaimed that Yeh is mentally incapacitated and incapable of intending to defraud FEMA because of the giant tumors that have formed in his brain.

Immediately following the federal raid, the federal government was reimbursed all the money it claimed was overpaid to the Flagship Hotel.

Then, despite being aware of Yeh’s brain tumors and medical situation, the federal government proceeded to indict him anyway in a misguided effort to display a no-tolerance policy on fraud following Hurricane Katrina.

The corporation that owned the Flagship Hotel was willing to plead guilty; this was not enough for the government.

From the outset, the federal prosecutors have failed to see the big picture, namely that Yeh is not legally competent as a result of his brain tumors.

Two federal judges have seen the big picture and have adopted the opinion of court-appointed forensic psychiatrist Dr. Victor R. Scarano that Yeh is, at present, mentally incompetent, to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.

Following this court finding of incompetence, one federal judge, at the insistence of the federal prosecutor, ordered Yeh to be taken into federal custody for up to four months for treatment and evaluation at a prison hospital, even though all medical evidence proves that Yeh suffers from organic brain injury.

All experts associated with this case agree that there is no medication that can treat this type of brain injury.

Prior to Yeh’s surrender at the prison hospital, he had been receiving treatment at the Texas Institute for Research and Rehabilitation, one of the premier treatment facilities for brain injury in the country.

Again, all medical experts associated with his case agreed that the best treatment and hope for any recovery would have been for him to continue at TIRR.

The cost of Yeh’s treatment at TIRR was being paid by his family, not the government.

Nonetheless, the government was opposed to TIRR for his treatment, and insisted he be deprived of his liberty, taken into custody and housed at a prison hospital for four months.

Thus, Yeh incurred his own travel costs, at no cost to the taxpayers, and surrendered to the prison hospital for his four-month treatment. Now, taxpayers are paying for his stay at the prison hospital.

He’s been there for two months now. What treatment is he receiving? Since his arrival, he has apparently been given one psychological test. His “treatment” consists of a single one-hour treatment session per week.

He spends the majority of his time taking walks.

Is this the type of evaluation and treatment contemplated by the federal legislature when enacting the federal statute?

Already the government has recouped more than it was overbilled by the Flagship Hotel, yet it is continuing to expend funds and valuable resources housing an incompetent man in a federal prison hospital so he can spend his days taking walks.

Changes are necessary, and reform of our nation’s competency laws should begin now, so that this scenario is never repeated.

What has happened to Yeh is a crime. It appears that the prosecutors, in an effort to justify their tough-on-crime position regarding FEMA fraud, are holding onto his case at all costs.

But, in reality, the cost is being shouldered by the taxpayers, who are paying for a legally incompetent man to spend day after day at a prison hospital taking walks.

Bob Bennett is a Houston attorney.


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Copyright © 2007 The Galveston County Daily News