EAST BRUNSWICK — A former East Brunswick physician, already in prison for practicing medicine without a license, has lost his latest attempt to overturn his 1996 conviction for illegally touching patients. In a decision released today, an appellate court dismissed Benjamin Levine’s appeal of a trial judge’s decision to reject post conviction relief in connection with the 1996 verdict in...
EAST BRUNSWICK — A former East Brunswick physician, already in prison for practicing medicine without a license, has lost his latest attempt to overturn his 1996 conviction for illegally touching patients.
In a decision released today, an appellate court dismissed Benjamin Levine’s appeal of a trial judge’s decision to reject post conviction relief in connection with the 1996 verdict in which Levine was convicted of nine counts of criminal sexual contact involving some of his patients from 1986 to 1990.
Levine, 69, served 178 days in jail for the conviction.
The court said the appeal papers submitted by Levine on June 4, 2008, were not complete and did not include a copy of the trial judge’s final order denying the motion or a transcript of the hearing at which the judge ruled. The judges also questioned whether the appeal was filed within the required time frame.
They said they would allow Levine to refile his appeal if the "obvious gaps in the record" are remedied.
Levine lost an initial appeal and the state Supreme Court refused to take the case. He filed a motion for post conviction relief, but the appellate judges said in today’s decision that they only had portions of transcripts of a hearing that began in 2005.
Levine was convicted earlier this year of practicing medicine without a license and stealing more than $170,000 from insurance companies. He was sentenced in April to eight years in prison.
The jury found Levine practiced medicine without a license between July 2003 and December 2005, after his license was suspended by the state Board of Medical Examiners when he failed to obtain medical malpractice insurance.
Testimony during the trial also revealed Levine continued to receive payments from Medicare and other insurance companies during that period.
Levine was acquitted last year of having criminal sexual contact with a female patient not included in the 1996 trial.