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Pharmacist's supporters describe `compassionate,' `honorable' man

By RICK MONTGOMERY and MATT STEARNS - The Kansas City Star
Date: 08/15/01 22:30

To his fellow pharmacists in the Kansas City area, Robert R. Courtney

has been a respected, well-known figure -- active in professional trade groups, but serious and quiet.

To the school that trained him to dispense medicine -- a practice that made him rich -- he was a generous benefactor.

To his father, a retired Assemblies of God minister, Courtney was the "ideal" son.

On Wednesday, several of Courtney's friends and relatives sat in the first row of a federal courtroom, lending support to someone accused of fraudulent acts that, if true, would have helped Courtney sustain a comfortable lifestyle by skimping on crucial drugs prescribed to cancer patients.

His supporters used words like "compassionate," "loyal," and "honorable" to describe Courtney, 48. They described a family man, a University of Nebraska football fan, a father of five children ages 7 to 22.

Until recent years, Courtney regularly attended local and regional meetings of independent pharmacists, but he was never one to spill forth advice, ideas or queries about the business.

"I've seen Robert Courtney attend these meetings for 20 years," said Dennis Hendershot, a chapter president of the American College of Apothecaries. "Most of us are pretty open with each other. But none of us remembers him participating much in those kinds of more personal discussions."

Missouri corporate records list Courtney as president of Courtney Pharmacy Inc., formed in 1987 and dispensing prescribed drugs at the Research Medical Tower Pharmacy, 6420 Prospect Ave., ever since. Investigators allege it was there that Courtney intentionally diluted, "misbranded and adulterated" expensive chemotherapy drugs.

He also owns Courtney's Pharmacy at 8901 W. 74th St. in Merriam, in a medical office building leased by Shawnee Mission Medical Center. Nothing in the court record suggests any fraud took place there. The manager of Courtney's Pharmacy, Greg Geier, said Wednesday that Courtney "has not filled a prescription here for at least five years and probably beyond that."

Courtney graduated from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1975 with a bachelor of science degree, according to Jennifer Wampler, who works with the Pharmacy Alumni Association and serves as executive director for the Pharmacy Foundation.

Ashok Gumbhir, a UMKC pharmacy professor, said he remembered Courtney as a capable student and a generous alumnus. Gumbhir said Courtney regularly contributed money to the pharmacy school and provided jobs to its students.

"I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this," Gumbhir said. "I find it incredible unless it was a mistake of some kind on his part."

Gumbhir described Courtney as a pioneer among Kansas City pharmacists dealing with cancer drugs. He remembers at least 15 years ago, attending a meeting where oncologists complained that their nurses were afraid to handle chemotherapy drugs, which are intended to kill human cells.

After that meeting, Gumbhir said, he suggested Courtney sell premixed chemotherapy drugs.

Courtney, he said, was among the first pharmacists in the metropolitan area to mix the drug compounds and deliver them to doctors' offices in a ready-to-use form. Doing so required the construction of special facilities, commonplace today at many retail pharmacies but extraordinary when Courtney began the practice.

"Even today, he's one of the few who do chemotherapy as a routine," Gumbhir said. "He's an absolute entrepreneur. We felt very proud of him."

The pharmacist's success was obvious. According to federal court records, Courtney owns about $8.5 million in stocks, $900,000 worth of real property and two pharmacies valued at more than $1 million.

He lives in the Tremont Manor subdivision in Kansas City, North, near Interstate 29 and Missouri 45. His two-story brick-and-stucco home sports a three-car garage, a large back yard with a stucco fence and an iron gate, where playground equipment, a tire swing and a basketball hoop are visible from the street.

A similar-size house two doors down on North Mattox Road is on the market for $549,500.

Neighbors said they never noticed anything unusual about the Courtney household. Just two people quietly raising young children.

The family worships at Northland Cathedral. Courtney recently was selected to serve on the church's financial committee. Among those who came to court Wednesday was the Rev. J. Lowell Harrup, Northland's pastor. He called the pharmacist "a wonderful man and a good man."

But like many pharmacists who routinely deal with customers facing terminal illnesses, Courtney displayed a measured, cautious demeanor -- never overly chatty, Hendershot said. Courtney seemed to prefer dress suits to pullover shirts and slacks.

"In some ways he acted more like a physician," said Hendershot, who once specialized in mixing chemotherapy drugs. "His business required it."

Many people familiar with Courtney wondered: Could there be some other explanation to his alleged acts?

Did he misread a prescription? Depending on a doctor's penmanship, "it can be difficult to discern the difference between an 8 and a 3," Hendershot noted. "There are a number of areas in this kind of work where honest mistakes could be made."

Retired pharmacist James Frederich, who employed Courtney fresh out of college, said the allegations are "beyond my wildest dreams."

The cancer drugs cited in court records -- Taxol and Gemzar -- almost always need to be diluted. Frederich, who sold his practice at Research Medical Tower to Courtney in the 1980s, wondered aloud: Could Courtney have mistakenly tapped into an already diluted batch?

But the gravity of the charges could not be mistaken in the courtroom. As Courtney's lawyer -- former U.S. Attorney Jean Paul Bradshaw -- spoke to reporters after the hearing Wednesday, Courtney's father stood silently by, staring down, his hand at his eyes.

Occasionally Robert L. Courtney, a retired minister, shook with silent sobs.

"If there is such a thing as an ideal son," said the elder Courtney, "he was it."

The Star's Scott Canon, Richard Espinoza, Matt Campbell and Lynn Franey contributed to this report.