Prosecutors say a prominent doctor defrauded Medicaid out of more than $300,000 by writing bogus OxyContin and Percocet prescriptions for about 30 patients at a Harlem clinic. Dr. Diana Williamson, who previously founded the Crossroads Medical Research to help AIDS patients in Brooklyn, pled guilty to participating in the drug ring, which resulted in over 27,000 pills being sold on the street. Well, she sort of pleaded guilty—according to Dr. Williamson and her attorney, she can't be held fully responsible because it was an alternate personality that perpetrated the crimes under her name.
"Nala, in Diana Williamson's body, committed serious crimes," Williamson's attorney Jonathan Marks tells the Wall Street Journal. "The only issue is whether Diana, the host personality, was present when Nala was committing these crimes." That could be difficult to prove! Nala is the name of the tween who accounts for one of a dozen of Williamson's personalities—a government expert confirmed that Williamson does indeed suffer from “dissociative identity disorder," the Post reports.
Williamson tells the tabloid she doesn't blame Nala, but when a reporter asked to interview one of her personalities, she said, "I would assume that they’re as scared as I am. I just want to protect them." Her attorney is urging the judge to spare Williamson a prison term and sentence her instead to community service, probation and restitution. Her psychiatrist also predicts Williamson will die before going to prison, but during a hearing last week federal Chief Judge Loretta Preska seemed skeptical, and pointed out that Williamson's multiple personalities—stemming from being sexually abused by a priest as a child—hadn't stopped her from becoming a successful physician.
