Doctor in Spiked IV Case Asks Judge to Release Him From Jail

The doctor accused of poisoning patients by spiking their IV bags at a Dallas surgery center asked a judge on Wednesday to release him from jail pending his trial.

Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz has been in custody since Sept. 19 when a judge agreed with prosecutors who argued Ortiz was a flight risk and a danger to the community.

“Dr. Ortiz is a medical terrorist,” assistant U.S. Attorney John de la Garza said at the time.

Ortiz was angry at getting disciplined at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare North Dallas on Coit Road and tainted IV bags linked to one death and at least 10 cardiovascular emergencies, prosecutors said.

Ortiz pleaded not guilty.

On Wednesday, Ortiz’s attorney, federal public defender John Nicholson, filed a motion with Magistrate David Horan to reconsider the detention, arguing the judge’s finding that Ortiz was a danger to the community suffers from “serious logical flaws.”

“If (Ortiz) committed the charged offenses, he is not in a position to do so again,” Nicholson wrote in the seven-page motion. “He knows he is carefully watched. He cooperated (with) his arrest. Taken together, the evidence does not show a danger to the community … which cannot be mitigated by conditions such as an ankle monitor.”

The motion also attempts to discredit the prosecution case.

“At most, the government has produced evidence of suspicious coincidences,” Ortiz’s lawyer wrote.

Prosecutors did not immediately respond to the motion.