Doctor Dealer: A doctor high on greed, a biker gang high on opioids, and the woman who paid the ultimate price - Hardcover

Anastasia, George; Cipriano, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593097769 ISBN 13: 9780593097762

Verlag: Berkley, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Dr. James Kauffman and his wife, April, were the perfect couple: a respected endocrinologist and a beautiful radio host. But under the surface lurked a world of drugs, sex, and biker gangs. A world Dr. Kauffman would kill to keep secret.

In May 2012, April Kauffman, a well-known local radio personality and staunch advocate of military veterans rights, was found shot to death in the bedroom of the home she shared with her husband, Dr. James Kauffman.

Six years later, in the fall of 2018, Freddy Augello, a leader of the notorious motorcycle gang the Pagans, went on trial for drug dealing and murder. He was charged with arranging the death of April Kauffman in exchange for $50,000 from her husband, who, in addition to practicing medicine, was one of the area’s most prolific drug traffickers. 

Told by two accomplished reporters and authors with exclusive insights and details provided by two principal players, this is the story about one man's descent into evil and the people he took with him. It's a story about a doctor who helped flood the streets with opioids, about a husband who hid dark secrets from his wives, and about a man so consumed with greed and arrogance that he thought he could get away with murder.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

George Anastasia was the mob writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer for years and is the author of six books on true crime. He is the recipient of numerous journalism awards and has worked on and been featured in a number of television documentaries, the most recent being a four-part series for the History Channel titled Kingpin that profiled the lives of John Gotti, James "Whitey" Bulger, Pablo Escobar, and Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Ralph Cipriano is an award-winning veteran muckraking reporter who has exposed corruption in city and county governments, the Philadelphia D.A.'s office, local police departments, Ivy League football programs, and the Catholic Church. He's the author of three books: Courtroom Cowboy, The Hit Man, and Target. His book on former mob hit man turned government witness John Veasey was the basis for a 60 Minutes profile of Veasey in 2013.

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One

 

The murder was carried out with cold-blooded efficiency.

 

April Kauffman was asleep in the bedroom she no longer shared with her husband in their stately two-story home on Woodstock Drive in Linwood, New Jersey, an upper-middle-class neighborhood just outside of Atlantic City. It was a little after five a.m. on May 10, 2012. Her husband, Dr. James Kauffman, was downstairs getting ready to leave for work. He was an endocrinologist with a lucrative practice in a busy office less than a fifteen-minute drive from their home.

 

The doctor, as he did almost every morning, would stop at a Wawa, a local convenience store, on his way to work. The store was a few blocks from their house. The security camera in place at the Wawa would capture him that morning entering and leaving the store.

 

This, investigators would later determine, was just a few minutes after he had handed the hit man a gun and pointed to his wife's upstairs bedroom.

 

"She's up there," he said.

 

Several hours later a handyman who worked for the Kauffmans would discover April's body sprawled on the floor next to her bed. She had been shot twice. One bullet had shattered her elbow. The other had ripped through her side, slicing through a lung, her heart and her other lung. A medical examiner would speculate that she struggled out of bed after being shot, then collapsed on the floor. She had bled to death internally, he said, estimating that at least two liters of blood had poured from her wounds.

 

The hit man was later identified as Francis "Frank" Mulholland. He was a junkie and, it would turn out, he was ill suited for the job. But he had been offered $10,000 to commit the murder. That was enough to satisfy his habit for several months. He was driven to the home that morning by Joseph "Irish" Mulholland. They shared the same last name, but were not related. Joe Mulholland said he dropped Frank off near the house in the dark that morning and told him he would be waiting for him a few blocks away. He was driving a white Silverado pickup truck.

 

Joe Mulholland would later describe himself as a reluctant getaway driver.

 

Reluctant and also guilt ridden.

 

Although it would be nearly five years before law enforcement would put the case together, there were rumors, hints and whispers from day one. James Kauffman wanted his wife dead. He had talked to more than a few people about this. There was word in the Atlantic County underworld, particularly in the underworld populated by outlaw biker gangs, that there was a doctor willing to pay to have his wife killed.

 

Murder, the good doctor had decided, was cheaper than divorce.

 

At the time, the Kauffmans were a celebrity couple in Atlantic County. He was a dapper, wealthy physician who spoke at symposiums and who railed against the dietary habits and sedentary lifestyle of patients battling diabetes. This was the bulk of his practice. Described by some as charismatic and by others as arrogant, the doctor was hands-on both in practicing medicine and in a lifestyle that was luxurious and indulgent. He was an enthusiastic gun collector. He had an array of rifles and handguns that he kept under lock and key in his home. He spent time skeet shooting and on firing ranges. He was also motorcycle enthusiast. In addition to his home in Linwood, he kept a vacation home in Arizona for getaways. April was his second wife. For those who liked to converse in stereotypes, she was the shiksa blond bombshell who had swept the much older doctor off his feet. She was forty-seven at the time she was killed. He was sixty-two.

 

They had been married for ten years. It was her third marriage. Her second husband had also been a doctor. Their divorce had been somewhat tumultuous. April had a grown daughter, Kim Pack, from her first marriage. Pack would later provide investigators with key pieces of information. From day one, she was suspicious if not convinced that James Kauffman had had something to do with her mother's death.

 

April Kauffman had created a life for herself that few would have expected given her background. She had had what a friend would later describe as a "somewhat unsettled childhood," raised by her grandmother and separated from four siblings that her mother had placed in foster care. She emerged as someone who was constantly looking for validation and, more important, for love. That search would continue as an adult. She owned and operated a beauty salon and had an interest in a restaurant-catering business. April was vivacious and outgoing, with flowing blond hair and a flirtatious manner; her upbeat personality was often a mask that hid insecurity and self-doubt.

 

At the time of her death, she had a weekly radio show in Atlantic County and had become a strong advocate for the rights of military veterans. "She was part princess, part bulldog," said an associate who worked with her on veterans' issues. That work brought her into contact with elected officials and government and military leaders in the area. Among other things, every Thanksgiving she would host a dinner at her home for recruits from the US Coast Guard station in nearby Cape May, young men and women who were unable to be with their families. She was offering a home away from home during the holiday.

 

Friends and neighbors would be invited as well. One local man who was a regular at the dinners had created something of a problem, according to an account provided by her daughter. He was a cross-dresser who would show upin drag. April had no problem with his proclivities, but told him some of the recruits were uncomfortable. She said that while he was welcome to come, she would prefer that he show up dressed as a man. It wasn't a question of her being intolerant, but rather a typical attempt on her part to ensure that her guests were at ease in her home.

 

In her last radio appearance, she described herself in terms that would prove to be a fitting epitaph. "I don't like training wheels," she said. "That's why . . . I drive a Corvette. I drive a motorcycle. I'm a full-throttle person."

 

On that same radio show, she also offered this eerie commentary: "I feel like I'm on borrowed time. And now if I was to be taken out, I'm telling you going up to see our Creator, I know I raised my daughter right with right American values. . . . She's moral. She's a good person, a hard worker, a patriotic person. . . ."

 

April Kauffman was well-liked and highly regarded in business, social and political circles around South Jersey, and her murder sent shock waves through those communities for various reasons, some of them unspoken.

 

"She was a do-gooder," said one person familiar with the events that unfolded. "But she had a voracious sexual appetite. The doctor thought he was a swinger, but his wife, she was major-league."

 

The sexual lifestyle of April and James Kauffman would hang over the murder investigation. In fact, there are those who believe one of the reasons the case went cold for so long was pressure from powerful individuals to keep details about April's sexual partners-some of whom moved in the upper circles of government, politics and business-from becoming public. April kept a diary. But after she was murdered, it disappeared.

 

Its content might have provided answers to what happened to her and why. Among other things, it might have shown how much she knew about her husband's involvement in a pill mill ring linked to an outlaw motorcycle gang. Medical records from Dr. Kauffman's office would show that he was writing prescriptions for oxycodone for members and associates of the Pagans, a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593097769
• ISBN 13: 9780593097762
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: ankabu; service@ankabu.de; ; Erdweg 17; Pöttmes; Bayern; Deutschland