National Scandal and Final Arrest

Audible subscribers convente all episodes of Dor. Death, the Cowboy early and ad free Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple podcasts About twelve miles north of Cody where Heart Mountain rises above open farmland. A lone car wound its way toward a secluded ranch Over the entrance, a pinewood arch carried the name Whispering winds It's got this huge blog cabin. everythingthing's in good shape He's got a huge full size writing arena It's a separate building. A lawyer named Joe Womack followed the long drive to the house, passing hayfields and a well stocked pond could see The fish rising. around the pond so you could just go stand on the bank and Take your little fly line and stick it out there and catch some Tout Joe hadn't come for the fishing He was there because John Schneyder had declared bankruptcy It had been a year since Schneider had been stripped of his Wyoming medical license, and now more and more of his former patients and their families were pursuing him for malpractice. Bill was potentially in the millions. Joe had been appointed by the court as the bankruptcy trustee to assess the scope of Schneider's wealth. He was claiming that he just didn't have the ability to pay any of his debts, that he didn't have any assets Yet here was his home, replete with a wriding arena and a fishing pond As Joe parked his car, Dr. Schneyder came out to greet him And he's got a nice Cowboy hat on And is duster that goes all the way down to the ground And he's got his cowboy boouton I see somebody like that and I just say, manan, you are such a dude, wanab be cowboy He's clearly not a working rancher those guys don't show off like that doctor Snneyder played the Gacious host, walking Joe around. pointoing out the crops had planted in the fields Anden he showed him around the house. Joe took photos of the wooden furniture and dining room set He was hoping he might be able to sell them to pay Dr. Schneider's debts But Dr. Schneider told him that the furniture wasn't his to sell He tried to claim it was all owned by his wife. The same went for the ranch itself Schneider didn't technically own that either. He had transferred it into a trust for his children. Back at the office, Joe began digging through the vast mountain of paperwork detailing Dr. Schneidder's financial affairs It wasn't easy to untangle Joe reckoned that at one time Schneidder had been worth as much as seventeen million dollars But not anymore At least not according to these papers That made me very suspicious When you see something like that, when I see something like that That means I've got to make some inquiry and dig into things to see what was going on The more Joe Doug, the more questions he had Snyder didn't transform from multimillionaire to penniless overnight It seemed pretty clear to Joe that he was shielding his assets Timing caught his eye. Because dor. Schneidder's money had been vanishing at exactly the same time as everything else in his life was falling apart I'm Raza Jeoffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we go back in time to meet Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution As America fights for freedom from Britain Arnold emerges as one of the rebel's greatest generals But when his loyalty is pushed to the limit, he turns spine Hevises a plot to shutatter the rebellion and make George Washington a prisoner Follow the Spy who Now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of the Sy Wh who P betrayed the American Revolution early and ad free on Audible. I'm Leon Nafok What happens when onlyly Fans becomes more than just a side hustle Only fantasy is an in depth look at the world's newest professional how the rules of human intimacy are being rewritten onine Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or binge all episodes of Only Fantasy, A free, onlynly on Audible. From Audible Originals, I'm Laura Beal, and this is Dr. Death The cowboy. This is episode five Lonesome dog Joe Womack, the bankruptcy trustee, worked on building the timeline of doctor Schneidder's financial transactions. In twenty eleven, the same time that Schneider had been dueling doctor Naratsky, he was anxiously emailing his accountant He wrote I am concerned almost daily with my liability exposure as a neurosurgeon and with the frequent bloody battles between contentious providers in the region I want to maximize my asset protection Is it worth opening an account outside of the country in an extradition free environment like Nevis or the Cayans We don't know the accountant's response, but pretty soon, Schneider began transferring millions of dollars worth of assets into entities owned by his children In December of that year, everything began to fall apart At firstirst, Russell Monaco died, and doctor Schneyder's license to practice was suspended Th Jimmy Bes sued him for defamation Eick, doctor Schneyder's remaining money and assets began to start flying around in a complicated web of trusts and companies, all owned by different members of his family. Legitimate estate planning, Schneider said Joe wasn't buying it I believed that all these transfers were boogus didid it strictly to keep them away from creditors. And Th then when he goes to zero files bankruptcy and says I got nothhing. Give me a discharge I just didn't believe it Although his family wasn't suspected of wrongdoing, it looked like Dr. Schneidder was hiding his money to avoid paying the very patients he was accused of harming And Joe realized the pattern went even further When Schneidder had to make a list of everyone he might owe money to, he didn't stop with the people already threatening to sue him He included seemingly every person he hadd ever operated on in Wyoming and Montana not because they had sued him or had in fact made a claim against him But he was looking to prevent any other people from suing him in the future For Joe, the suspicion was undeniable. Schneider wasn't just shielding himself from current lawsuits He was trying to avoid any further claims On a chilly winters day in Billings, Montana, Joe Womack watched as doror Schneider settled into his seat Dr. Schidder, would ple raise your right hand Do you so swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? They were there for a formal meeting. an opportunity for Dr. Schneidder's creditors and their lawyers to ask him questions under oath Joe started running through all the entities and assets connected to Schneider It was a long list proroperties, land, bank accounts, and vehicles And then one particular vehicle caught his attention There was a Harley Davidson motorcycle that you indicated was gifted in two thousand two to your brother in law Okay. so you haveve not had possession of it nor is it you haven't ac possession of that since two thousand two? Well, I've been I've been able to use it periodically But I'm a neurgeon so I tend to shy away from motorcycles, but it's It's not mine Something didn't quite add up Did you ride it out here and then you use it? or how does it come to be that you used that motorcycle when he's in California and until recently you've been in Montana and Wyoming He has written it out here m, and He has periodically left it here and periodically brought it back to California. All right Joe casually moved on to other questions, but Schneider's answer stayed with him I'm very suspicious of that. It doesn't sound like it was legitimate to me called up Snyder's sister. I said Did your brother give your husband? Harley Davidson Motorcyc And she said, Are you kidding My husband was in a horrible motorcycle accident some years ago. He hasn't ridden a motorcycle in years. He can't ride a motorcycle. John never gave him a motorcycle Joe almost couldn't believe it. All it had taken was one phone call to find Schneider apparently lying when he was sworn to tell the truth. guysys I mean, he obviously has a certain level of smartness of brilliance, you know? But when it came to making up aaaii, it was just stupid So at that point I know he's a liar I know that I can't trust anything He says anymore. And so that's a reason for me to start digging deeper into everything that he tells me Joe asked her about another large asset Schnyder had supposedly gifted to her There was a country home outside of Billings R Schneyder said he gave it to his sister as payment for some administrative work But now, when Joe pressed his sister, she admitted that half the proceeds from the sale of the house went straight back to Schneider When she tried to give him his share, he told her to put it in a bank account in her name, not his But he kept a hold of the ATM card That was clear bankruptcy fraud, you know, That was taking assets belonged to the bankruptcy estate that should have gone to creditors and trying to use it for his own personal benefit To Joe, this was all money that should have gone to patients and families So when he filed his report with the relevant authorities, he didn't hold back He's committed fraud, he's stolen from bankruptcy estate And when they get that, then they go through the process and investigate things to see if they find anything further Soon enough, the case landed on the desk of spepecial agent John Taling at the FBI field office in Billings As he read through the background, it became clear this wasn't a normal bankruptcy case donon't mean to be vulgar, but There was a shitload of allegations just flying all over the place in this case You had an allegation of a doctor that killed somebody You had allegations of a doctor that maimed someone You had allegations of a doctor that tried to destroy the practice or reputation of other doctors. he had all these issues Personality conflict, vindictive behavior threats. all the spun into this financial situation He's got some judgments against him and he needs to hide money The accusations spread out in every direction, following John Schneidder as he crisscrossed from Montana to Wyoming and back peeling, the question was where to start I couldn't spend two years just unraveling everything he did. I couldn't. And That's why I took the most readily proable Criminal act, right in my backyard a financial crime in his jurisdiction in Montana. Teling reached out to a federal prosecutor he often worked with Colin Rubich. John would call and say, Hey, I've got it something that I think is worth our time. And I said, okay, what do you got Healing laid out the case, H Schneider was a doctor who'd had his license stripped for over prescribing medication which had led to the death of a patient and was accused of injuring others Despite denying any wrongdoing, he'd paid millions of dollars settling a defamation lawsuit brought against him by another doctor And now it looked like he was lying and hiding his assets This wasn't isolated. you know, this lying that he was doing was part of a bizarre sort of pattern of behavior. I mean, he's lying and lying and lying. By the end of the call, Colin Rubich was in. You hate to say these screw at the wrong people It's like now You did it It looks like you finally crossed the line We finally went one step too far And this is your day of reckoning They heard Dr. Schnyder was holed up near San Diego. So Rubrich and Teling took their time before making a move, including lining up testimony from Schneider's own sister By June of twenty seventeen, they were ready An indictment was issued and a court summons was sent to Dr. Schneyder's address in California But he had vanished Damn it the son of a bitch didn't show up for court. I gott to drop everything, find out where the hell I think he is. An arrest warrant went out loal FBI was asked to help with the search and still They couldn't find them Back in Montana, prosecutor Colin Rubich was at a loss. It's been easier for me to find drug dealers than this guy. Why haven't we found them The answer was simple They were looking in the wrong place. He wasn't in San Diego He wasn't even in California He was more than eight thousandeen hundred miles away Iowa City. in the operating room I'm Raza Jffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, open the file on Benedict Arnold y who betrayed the American Revolution America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire. And one of its foremost generals was Benedict Ar He's a smugger turned battlefield hero. admired for his aggressive tactics But when a war wound H new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the Max. Turn spine and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief, General George Washington And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history Follow the Sy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts You can also listen to the full season of the spy who betrayed the American Revolution early and ad free on the Audible months before the arrest warrant was issued, doctor Schneidder had been charting a new course He was hired by a cadaver lab teaching spinal surgery by demonstrating surgical techniques on dead bodies But then something caught his eye The Veterans' Hospital in Iowa was looking for a surgeon Even though he'd lost his medical license in Wyoming, he still had licenses in Montana and Utah, at least while his appeal in Wyoming was still playing out. So Dr. Schneider dusted off his resume and submitted an application to the Iowa City VA Medical Center. The form required him to disclose the loss of his Wyoming license, as well as any other outstanding legal problems So he included a five page letter explaining his complicated record His words are read by a member of our production team. My issues with the Wyoming Board of Medicine began with an emergency suspension because of perceived over prescribing of the drug fentanyl doror Schneider said Russell Monico's death was the fault of his physician assistant And he claimed that medical boards in Montana and Utah had looked at the same evidence physicians With the guidance of their lawyers reviewed the evidence and concluded that I did nothing wrong When we asked him, doct. Snyder declined to provide evidence for this. In fact, his license in Montana was revoked at a later date, and the one in Utah was allowed to expire That wasn't the only scandal that Dr. Schneider needed to explain in his application to the VA There was also the small issue of his bankruptcy He was, he wrote the victim of a violent, unanticipated and malicious attacks I and my family were raked over the coals accused of fraud and lying and concealing assets Now he said it was all behind him He wrote that he and his family had been unable to defend ourselves for access to funds. and under great coercion that nearly cost me my marriage and faith A settlement was reached that allowed us to close this chapter in our lives. claimed that he had found a new perspective on the true meaning of life. He said, Although these lawyers do everything in their power to drive a man into the dark abyss, Our faith in God and Christ, the strength of our family bond and the irrelevance of material wealth allowed my family to persevere continontinued on unfractured We don't know what the hiring team at the hospital made of all this At this stage, there were no criminal charges, so they wouldn't have known about the FBI investigation But if the VA had looked up Schneider's record at the Wyoming Board of Medicine, and surely they must have They would have found the order stripping him of his license The one that found Schneidder's defense to be, quote not credible or believable The reddest of red flags twwelve weeks later. a letter arrived in the mail with an answer Dear, Dr. Schneidder Congratulations Welcome to the Iowa City VA Healthcare systemy dor. Schneyder would now be operating on U. S. veterans Less than four months later, Annette Rainsford was in a waiting room at the Iowa City VA anxiously waiting for word about her brother Rick You want to know, how are things going? Is it okay? Did they find anything else He'd been undergoing an operation on his brain, and it had been four hours was no news. You just don't know what they're going find Rick Hopkins was a former Army vet in his mid sixties He loved animals and after leaving the army, he got a job at the local zoo When that shut down, he worked on a dairy farm At lunchtime, he'd go to the local tavern in his muddy boots and drink a dirty martini with two olives. On this day at the hospital Dr. Snyder came out to see his family. We're all huddled around. You know foootball players to the coach And he explained to us that it was larger than he thought that everything should be okay and that the first forty eight hours were crucial and that everything went very well We were hanging on every word that he said And you know, we are hugging each other and My sister was crying And it's a cry of relief But like so many others before her, Anette noticed something different about what Dr. Schneyder was wearing. I looked down and he had dirty cowboy boots on and no booties And I thought, That's the doctor Why is he wearing dirty cowboy boots So she decided to confide in one of her brothers about it. And my brother goes, well on N, I think he's just trying to make us think he's Normal, like us Well, we're not normal, but He's trying to make us feel Comfortable with his demeanor and wearing those boots Dr. Snyder believed the surgery to have been a quote, resounding success Then Richard's recovery took a sudden turn They said he was bleeding brain Three days after the surgery, Richard's daughter, Amy McIntyre, got a call It was Dr. Sneyder saying that the bleed got larger and they have to go back in and do a revision Amy couldn't understand it. She asked the staff How could this happen and you get the answer of This is sad, but it's not an unexpected post surgical complication. Richard's sister Annette still wasn't so sure about Dr. Schneyder I couldn't get past the dirty cowboy boots and I didn't trust him She tried asking the nurses in the ICU They said no, they know nothing about him because he's new. More than one day, she was with her sister when she saw doctor Schnyder making his way down the hall We followed him down We weren't acting like secret agents or anything like that. We werere just slowly walking and keep an eye on him. And you know what? He started walking faster and I was afraid we're going to lose him and with the same boots on The same ones he had in surgery The two women followed the sound of Dr. Schneyder's boots into the staff parking area Peking from behind a pillar, they saw him hop onto a motorcycle And I thought, why would someone that treats people with head injuries or neck injuries or any injury be riding a motorcycle I couldn't understand that Dr. Schneidder put his helmet on, a net edged out, far enough to see the back of the bike I saw the license plates. okay. Iowa. It's gott Iowa Pate Once she got back home, she began furiously googling St startart looking John Schneider, Iowa surgeon, neurosurgeon. nothing I was researching Indiana surgeons, Illinois surgeons, Missouri So can find him To aette, Schneider seemed to have appeared in Iowa City out of the blue. She had no idea that he was being investigated for fraud by the FBI Meanwhile, Richard's health got worse He developed a lung infection and was placed on a ventilator. A CT scan revealed that the bleeds on Richard's brain had dramatically increased So Dr. Schneidder operated again And then again. to tackle more complications Four brain surgeries in less than a month Richard slipped into a coma Even this as Amy saw it not seem to trouble Dr. Schneidder Schneider was still coming into the room saying, Oh no, he's gonna to be fine He's going to be fine. He just needs to go to rehab for a little bit. He's going to come out of this spine Amy was a nurse herself She knew Richard wasn't coming back In a care conference, the family made the agonizing decision to end life support. His sister, Anette entered his hospital room to say one last goodbye The girls were sitting around him Amy was always listening to his heartbeat And u The other two were on the other side They're holding his hand You know? stokking him tell they loved him. And his work, we love you so much. I'm so sorry. What else could I say? You know, what can I say And you know, right now I wish I could just walk into that tavern with him and have a martini shaken, not stirred, he'd say Oh wreck After Rick passed away The family packed up his things and went home, broken hearted His deterioration had been so sudden the number of complications so overwhelming, they struggled to make sense of it They assumed it must have just been an unavoidable tragedy the kind of thing that can just sometimes It was just before Thanksgiving in twenty seventeen And Annette was getting ready to leave for work when her phone rang. It was her husband He said Anette, S somebody called from USA today and they want to talk to you. I said, What? He goes, Yeahah, it's concerning your brother Rick I said, I wonder what for. That's weird On her way home, she called the journalist Donovan Slack She said, Annette, I said, Yes, Richard Hopkins is dress, Yes. And she said, I found her brother's obituary And he was in the Armed serervices. I said, Yes. thenen he had brain surgery. and she said, Can you tell me whoo his surgeon was John Schneider. And I heard her go It's him Finally dor. Schnyder could no longer outrun his past On december third, twenty seventeen USA Today published the story about Dr. Schnneyder headline read VA knowingly hires doctors with past malpractice claims, discipline for poor care Annette scrolled through the U.S.A toay article in disbelief Her brother's surgeon had seen his license stripped That should have been a red flag right now Why would you hire him? I just can't I still can't get over that. I cannot past that No one should have hired him And Dr. Schneidder was just one. There were others too A VA hospital in Oklahoma knowingly hired a psychiatrist previously sanctioned for sexual misconduct who went on to sleep with a patient. In Louisiana, a VA clinic hired a psychologist with felony convictions The VA ended up firing him after they determined that he was a direct threat to others Even in this company, the story of John Schneidder stood out. The piece also included quotes from some of Dr. Snyder's former patients in Montana and Wyoming They painted a picture of a doctor who had been accused of repeatedly harming his patients and still been hired Luckily, the story snowballed into a national scandal Onemer Iowa Vveer's Affairs hospital doctor was hired despite having multiple lawsuits of malpractice against him. This after USA todayod report says multiple VA hospitals across this country went against hiring standards hiring doctors despite claims of substandard care Word began to spread among former patients. My sister actually called me up and she said, didid you see The USA today article and Dr. Schneyder, I said no Marine veteran Anthony French was at his home near Cedar Falls, Iowa when he read the news Holy shit What did they do to me Maybe this is why I develop these headaches Back in the summer, Dr. Schneider had operated on him to remove a tumor at the base of his brain But for months afterwards, the headaches had gotten worse Anthony told Schneider about it at his follow up appointments And he kept saying, that's normal. You just had major brain surgery He said, it's going to take a year, a year and a half Anthony says that doctor Schneidder told him there was no need for a follow up MRI. He said, I removed everything. There's not a cintilla of it left Now, for the first time, Anthony realized that he'd put his life in the hands of a surgeon who never should have been allowed back in an operating room Holy Cryy What the hell going on? he had fourteen or so other malpractice lawsuits against him It would take another three months before the VA finally gave him a follow up MRI. When he walked into the exam room to get the results, he found the new doctor already waiting He had two computer screens up and he just looked up at me and shook his head They should Tell me it's growing back The surgeon walked Anthony through the two scans, one from before the surgery, and the other taken that morning. You said, he never removed anything And I said, Well, Jesus Christ, it's even grown. Any says the surgeon told him he should have had an MRI within thirty days of the operation But there didn't seem to be a plausible medical reason for him not to have been given one I s So, you're telling me he didn't do the MRI because he knew he didn't remove the tumor And he said, that's exactly what he did. When we asked Dr. Schneyder about Anthony, he described the accusations as baseless and that he didn't recall Anthony Meanwhile, Amy and Annette were searching for their own answers Two months after the USA Today article broke, they sat down for a meeting with hospital administrators seek this opportunity in since I'm sure you have quite a bit of questions Amy recorded on her phone, which she placed in the middle of the table. I guess my biggest concern along these lines is You know, How did it happen anyway? W Schneider hired with such a string a questionable medical issues the relocation of his license. I mean, that's blatantly against the law Yeah. so step back a bit The USA today reported the added revocation in the state license And Wy other state licenses. Yes. So he was okayed by National Office and everything to hire him The VA administrator told Amy and Annette that the fact that Dr. Schneidder still had licenses in Montana and Utah was good enough for the head office in DC to greenlight his appointment And they believed that they had vetted Dr. Schneyder thoroughly Anytime we hire somebody with any type of lawsuits, we check into everything We check references I I probably five to six references on him regarding his patient care. So no, Anybody who has any type of lawsuit at all. a surgeon that we hire does raise red flags and it was months of going through all these things before we hired them But that still didn't explain why they'd hired someone who'd had their license revoked The non answer didn't escape Amy and Anette They never answered it I can't get past the fact. Why Why would you hire someone that had their license stripped? That's just the bottom line right there, isn't it That's everything We asked Dr. Schneyder about Richard Hopkins case Through his lawyer, he denied any wrongdoing He told us that he thinks Amy and Annette have been, quote misled into believing that doctor Schneidder provided substandard care to Richard, simply because his license had been suspended and or the bankruptcy case A folsome review of the medical records here would indicate that Dr. Schneider was not negligent in this man's death He added that at no time was Dr. Schneyder ever accused of medical malpractice in Richard Hopkins care But the Hopkins family saw it differently. They sued the government As part of that suit, a neurosurgeon conducted an expert review of Richard's medical records. In his opinion, Dr. Schneidder's treatment fell outside the standard of care And he concluded that it was probable that Richard would have survived if the VA had properly vetted Dr. Schneyer. The case was settled without admission of wrongdoing Unlike the Hopkins family and Anthony French, the VA knew who Dr. Schneidder was They knew he hadd been found culpable in the death of a patient and they'd hired him anyway In a statement, they told us that the VA has, quote, instituted policy changes to prevent similar hiring mistakes in the future When they heard the USA Today story was going to come out, they moved to fire Dr. Schneidder He resigned soon after. By then, he had even bigger problems. When he traveled back to his house near San Diego, an FBI agent had been keeping watch The agent tails Schneider to a local church As he emerged from the service, they moved in dor. Schneider was put in handcuffs and placed in the back of a car. Word quickly got back to spepecial agent Taling. The agent calls me and says I just picked him up taking them to the lockup My reaction is finally You know, not for this shit Accept responsibility and apologize for what you've done