Longtime Coast doctor released from federal prison due to coronavirus outbreak
Longtime Coast doctor Albert Diaz was released from federal prison on Thursday after serving over 60% of his sentence in a compound pharmacy scheme.
Diaz, 80, was released at about noon from the minimum-security federal prison at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, said his attorney, John Colette.
“I spoke with Dr. Diaz while he was in the car on the way home around lunch,” Colette said. “It was very good news. We are happy. We are very pleased.”
His attorneys had also filed a request for the doctor’s early release because of his poor health that made him more susceptible to catching the new coronavirus.
According to court records, Diaz has asthma and hypertension and, more recently, doctors discovered a mass on his lung. In addition, Diaz’s is mostly confined to a wheelchair or uses a walker to get around.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office objected to his release.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett did not grant the request for Diaz’s release.
Instead, the warden at the Alabama prison where Diaz was serving his time ordered his release to home confinement because of his age and health issues amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“The family thanks the thousands of supporters in the local community who have backed a physician who has been a pillar of our community for 40-plus years,” his son, plastic surgeon Michael Diaz, said. “We are so thankful he is home and out of harm’s way of the petri dish of exposure of COVID-19 within a prison system.
“We thank the warden at Maxwell Air Force Base for listening to U.S. Attorney General William Barr when he gave them the discrepancy and the leeway to get high-risk prisoners out of harm’s way.”
Diaz had been in prison since March 2, 2018, when a federal jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, fraud, falsifying records to cover up his crimes and distribution of a controlled substance — ketamine, a drug used for sedation.
In June 2018, Starrett sentenced Diaz to 3 years and 6 months in prison. In the filings for his release on compassionate grounds, his attorneys said his bad health placed him at risk of suffering serious complications if he got COVID-19.
“Contracting the coronavirus in prison might be a death sentence for Albert Diaz,” the filing said.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Diaz is among over 233 other federal prisoners who have been released due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The largest number of cases of coronavirus to date in federal lockups is in Mississippi at the Federal Correctional Institute in Yazoo City, the BOP data shows.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 8:11 PM.
