For Immediate Release - Feb 1, 2006

Contact:

Pam Russell DA Public Information 303-271-6905

Re: O'Connell Pleads Guilty During Jury Selection

On the second day of jury selection, the trial of Brian Edward O'Connell, DOB: 2-29-68, took a surprise change in course with O'Connell pleading guilty.  This morning he pled guilty to Theft (a class four felony); Perjury (a class four felony); Criminally Negligent Homicide (a class five felony); Illegal Practice of Medicine (a class two misdemeanor); and Third Degree Assault (a class 1 misdemeanor).

Yesterday evening, while preparing for trial, prosecutors received a file on a 1999 criminal case from the District Attorney's off-site storage they had previously requested.  They believed that Mr. O'Connell had possibly been a witness in that case. It turned out, according to a transcript in that file, that O'Connell had been used by the defense as an expert witness in the field of toxicology and had represented himself as having credentials that this current investigation determined to be fraudulent.  Upon making this finding, Prosecutors George Brauchler and Mike Freeman told the defense that they would likely be filing another case with a perjury charge.  This morning jury selection resumed, but mid-morning the defense offered to plead guilty to the counts listed above instead of proceeding to trial.  District Attorney Scott Storey was part of the discussion and decision to accept the plea of guilty. Coincidentally, the case in which O'Connell had been a defense witness in 1999 was prosecuted by then Deputy District Attorney Scott Storey.  In that case, the defendant was found guilty.

In the current case, for which jury selection was underway, O'Connell was accused of having treated patients, including administering medication that he was not authorized to possess or administer.  In his office he displayed numerous degrees and certifications claiming he was doctor and a Naturopath.

According to court records, the Colorado Medical Board found that he had no license to practice medicine in Colorado and was not certified as any kind of health care worker.  They also considered the treatments he was performing as practicing medicine. 

O'Connell was accused of having injected a hydrogen peroxide solution into a 19-year-old patient who had Ewing's Sarcoma. The procedure is believed to have hastened his death.  He also injected this hydrogen peroxide solution into a 17-year-old female which caused her to go into cardiac arrest.  Another patient of O'Connell's had terminal liver cancer and was told by O'Connell that a "black salve" compound would pull the cancer out of his body. Instead it created open, bleeding wounds that continued until his death.  O'Connell also used a procedure called "photo luminescence", in which he would withdraw the blood of a patient, run it through ultraviolet light and then inject it back into their body.

O'Connell is set to be sentenced on March 27, 2006 at 8:00 in Division 8 of the Jefferson County District Court.