A Missouri doctor accused of lying about his qualifications as a surgeon while giving expert testimony in an Arkansas court case is facing a felony perjury charge in Arkansas, court documents show.
On Wednesday morning, Boone County prosecutors filed a criminal information against Dr. Melvyn Wayne Flye in Boone County Circuit Court, saying he made a false material statement regarding his “background and status as a surgeon” during court testimony on or about June 15, 2010.
A second perjury count was also filed against Flye. In a May 2013 affidavit accompanying their filing of formal charges, Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Ron Kincade and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Wes Bradford allege that Flye also gave false testimony during a May 20, 2009, deposition in the same case that was conducted in St. Louis.
Perjury is a felony in Arkansas, covered under Arkansas Code Annotated 5-53-102.
According to the affidavit, Flye had been asked to review a surgical procedure performed by Dr. Jose Padilla at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison.
In his June 15 testimony during the trial, Flye told the court he was, at the time, an active surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, andthat he also was operating an outpatient clinic, as well as consulting, for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Dr. Flye made these statements when in fact he had been suspended from performing surgery since January of 2009 and had not performed surgery at Washington University or the Veterans Administration since that suspension,” according to the affidavit. “In addition, he had been terminated by the Veterans Administration in December of 2009.”
During the May 2009 deposition, Flye had said he had most recently performed surgery on or about May 18, 2009, according to the affidavit, and that he hadperformed gallbladder surgery about one month earlier.
“Dr. Flye also stated he had been sued only once,” the affidavit said of the deposition, and the doctor had estimated that had occurred 15-18 years ago. Instead, it continued, Flye “had been named as a defendant in two lawsuits since 1985, one of which was filed in 2007 and was pending at the time of his deposition.”
During part of Flye’s testimony June 15, he stated the information he had provided during the deposition was correct, the affidavit alleges.
Kincade and Bradford couldn’t be reached for comment Friday afternoon at the prosecutor’s office.
The Harrison Daily Times reported that Flye, 71, was arrested Tuesday. A judge in the 14th Judicial District set bail at $50,000, according to the affidavit. The newspaper also reported that Flye was thedesignated plaintiff’s expert witness in a civil case alleging medical neglect in which Paul Archer was suing Dr. Padilla over a gallbladder surgery Padilla had performed on Archer.
Archer won the case during the lower-court trial in Boone County, and was awarded $400,000 in damages, according to the newspaper. Padilla appealed the case to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, which upheld the judgment, relying on Flye’s testimony in its December 2011 opinion. Flye had testified that Padilla attempted the gallbladder surgery as a laparoscopic surgery but should have opted for an open-incision procedure because the less-invasive method didn’t allow him to visualize the structures of the gallbladder and the liver.
The Daily Times also reported that Flye had voluntarily surrendered his medical license and characterized the VA’s action against Flye as a suspension of his surgery privileges rather than a termination.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/20/2013