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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — The trial for a 71-year-old woman charged with fraud in an alleged cancer treatment scam has begun in Tulsa.
The Tulsa World (http://bit.ly/1l73A9R ) reports that Antonella Carpenter faces 41 counts of fraud in her trial, which began Monday. She has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Carpenter claimed to be able to cure various kinds of cancer by using lasers to heat cancerous tissue injected with a mixture of saline solution and green dye or walnut hull extract. She operated treatment clinics formerly located in Owasso and Broken Arrow.
Carpenter, who is not a medical physician, previously operated a similar clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Prosecutors say Carpenter schemed to obtain money from cancer patients by false and fraudulent representations from November 2006 to December 2012.
Federal agents raided the Owasso clinic in 2012 and seized computer and financial records, patient filed and $7,800 in cash.
U.S. Attorney Clemon Ashley said in court that prosecutors were not challenging the science of Carpenter's methods, but they would argue that Carpenter claimed that the treatment was "100 percent effective," ''fully FDA approved," and that it would send patients home "free of cancer."
Carpenter's attorney, Rob Ridenour, says his client charged $1,500 per treatment, with each case requiring a minimum of about three treatments. Ridenour said Carpenter received a patent for the treatment process from the European Union in 2000 before she and her husband opened a clinic in Arkansas.
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Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com
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