E-mailed picture of Pierce tied to Mann

Sangeeta Mann (right), wife of Randeep Mann, not pictured, enters the Federal Courthouse in Little Rock Tuesday.
Sangeeta Mann (right), wife of Randeep Mann, not pictured, enters the Federal Courthouse in Little Rock Tuesday.

— An e-mail that Dr. Randeep Mann sent to his brother in India a year before a homemade bomb injured Dr. Trent Pierce, chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, included a photograph of Pierce and the words, “I hope the picture is good,” a federal agent testified Tuesday, as testimony in Mann’s bombing trial entered a third week.

David Oliver, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified that partly because of the “suspicious” e-mail, the brother, Sandip Mann, was also investigated - but never charged - in the bombing that cost Pierce an eye and left him with other severe injuries.

Referring to Randeep Mann, Oliver said, “I thought maybe he was sending the picture for someone to use to target someone.”

The picture, from a Medical Board newsletter that jurors have already seen, was of Pierce and the former board chairman Ray Jouett. In the e-mail, the sender pointed out which man was which.

Oliver noted that, according to records provided by Microsoft in response to a subpoena, the e-mail, from an account that was set up by Mann’s wife, Sangeeta “Sue,” but was often used by him, was sent on Feb. 24, 2008 - about the time that he would have received a letter from the Medical Board’s executive secretary.

The letter, dated Feb. 20, 2008, informed Mann that the board had voted on Feb. 7 not to address his request that his prescription-writing permit be reinstated.

The board had yanked Mann’s Drug Enforcement Administration permit in July 2006 after looking into complaints that he overprescribed narcotics. The board had also revoked Mann’s permit in 2003, for one year. Without the permit, Mann, a pain specialist, couldn’t legally prescribe narcotics, and business at his Russellville clinic dropped dramatically, according to pretrial testimony.

Meanwhile, he also faced civil lawsuits filed on behalf of former patients.

Mann complained in lawsuits of his own that board members were treating him unfairly because he is Hindu and a native of India.

Prosecutors say the doctor’s acrimonious relationship with the board and comments that Pierce made to Mann during board meetings led Mann to orchestrate the bombing that occurred about 7:50 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2009.

Prosecutors have said that although the board had agreed by that time to consider Mann’s request to renew his permit at its forthcoming June 2009 meeting, it had also recently ordered a new investigation of him that had the potential to permanently cost him his medical license.

Pierce was injured in the explosion of a grenade attached to a spare tire that someone had leaned against his vehicle while it was parked in his driveway overnight. The blast occurred as he prepared to drive to work and then to Little Rock to attend a board meeting.

Special section

Doctor bombing

Jurors also heard testimony Tuesday about investigators’ efforts to determine where the bomber got the spare Nissan “doughnut-sized” tire that exploded.

First, a Nissan engineer testified that the serial number of the exploded tire showed that it was a Firestone model used on 2002 Nissan Altimas.

Next, a former handyman for Mann, Phil Barthelme, testified that sometime before the bombing, he rode to Memphis with Mann to talk to Pete Patel, who co-owns a motel in that city with Mann. Barthelme said he went along to prepare an estimate for possibly doing some renovation work on the hotel.

Barthelme testified that the men “mentioned picking up a spare tire” but he didn’t pay much attention to the men’s conversation and never saw a spare tire. He also noted that he was using the restroom and out of the men’s sight for a while.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon, Barthelme said the car Mann drove had a trunk.

Oliver then testified that on May 28, 2009, federal agents served a search warrant at Patel’s home in Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, after financial, telephone and other records showed three Nissan Altimas, including a 2002 model, registered in Patel’s name.

A white 2002 Altima was found at the house, but Patel initially refused to allow agents to search the car until they produced the warrant authorizing a search for a spare “doughnut-sized” tire.

A search of the car’s trunk showed “there was not a doughnut-sized spare tire. There was, in fact, a full-sizespare tire,” Oliver testified.

He said Patel and his wife told agents that the doughnut-sized spare was in the garage or on the side of the house, but agents couldn’t find it in either place. Agents then searched a warehouse belonging to Patel but, again, couldn’t find the doughnut sized tire.

Questioned about why the small spare had been replaced with a full-sized spare, the Patels told agents that the car was frequently used by their children and for long-distance trips, and they wanted to be prepared for a flat tire far from home, Oliver told jurors.

He said agents also searched other vehicles at the Patels’ house and all of them held only doughnut-sized spares in the trunks.

Also Tuesday, Oliver testified about personal-property records that showed that Randeep Mann had, on numerous occasions, transferred some of his land and vehicles into his brother’s name after Sandip Mann was deported.

Oliver suggested that Randeep Mann was taking the actions to prevent his property from being seized in the event that any lawsuits against him resulted in judgments against him.

Oliver testified that Sandip Mann was deported to Indiain July 2002 after his visa expired. Some documents signed just before then, in which Sandip Mann gave Randeep Mann and Sangeeta Mann power of attorney over his financial affairs, are among documents that federal prosecutors have accused Sangeeta Mann of trying to hide from investigators.

Defense attorneys, however, have said that many of the papers pertained to the Pope County couple’s adoption of Sandip Mann’s son and were private.

Defense attorneys have also said it made sense for Sangeeta Mann to take blank checks presigned by Sandip Mann out of the empty medical clinic after it was shut down after Randeep Mann’s arrest.

The trial is to resume at 9 a.m. today in the Little Rock courtroom of U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller, with Pierce expected to take the witness stand. He hasn’t been in the courtroom during the trial, which began with jury selection on July 6.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/28/2010

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