Federal jury convicts former Santa Rosa doctor of illegally prescribing substances leading to patient’s death

A federal jury on Thursday convicted Thomas McNeese Keller, a former Santa Rosa physician, of four counts of distributing controlled substances without legitimate medical need.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds announced the conviction of 75-year-old Keller, who ran a pain management practice in Santa Rosa. Keller was indicted in September 2018.

During a trial in federal court, evidence showed Keller repeatedly prescribed the opioid oxycodone, as well as other strong and addictive drugs, to a patient in dosages that “far exceeded the usual course of professional practice and was for no legitimate medical need,” according to a news release Friday from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Keller also prescribed the controlled substance diazepam, known as Valium, to the patient, alongside oxycodone and carisoprodol, a muscle relaxer. The patient later died of an overdose of oxycodone and other drugs, according to the release.

Keller was convicted on four counts of distributing drugs outside the scope of professional practice. The jury, however, was unable to reach a verdict on six other related counts.

The four counts carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison while the counts of distributing carisoprodol and diazepam carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the release.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria has not yet set a date for sentencing. Keller remains out of custody pending his sentencing hearing.

Separate from the federal case, Keller was arrested in August 2020 and faced multiple charges brought by the California Attorney General’s Office, including second-degree murder in the deaths of four Sonoma County residents: Tripo Nelson, Ashlee McDonald, Dean Rielli and Jerri Lee Badenhop-Bionda, all of whom died between 2016 and 2017 from drug overdoses while under Keller’s care.

The jury in that case returned a not guilty verdict for four of nine counts against the physician. He was found not guilty in the second-degree murders of Badenhop-Bionda and Rielli, and was also acquitted of recklessly prescribing medications to Steven Delacour, of Forestville, and an undercover agent who posed as a patient.

The jury was hung on five remaining counts, including second-degree murder in the deaths of Nelson and McDonald and recklessly prescribing medications to Santa Rosa residents Jennifer Silver and Alyssa Rieden. The jury also was unable to reach a consensus on the charge of elder abuse for Keller’s treatment of his former patient, Susan Ross — a 67-year-old woman who died in 2015 from respiratory and other health issues in combination with dangerous levels of prescription drugs in her system.

Keller, a former Army neurosurgeon, had a checkered medical career. He was found to have engaged in sexual misconduct with several patients in 1989, for which he served six months in jail. He also was temporarily stripped of his license, which was eventually reinstated in 1994.

He opened his Santa Rosa medical practice in 2008 and started focusing on pain management about three years later.

He suspended his medical practice in fall 2018, after learning that federal authorities were investigating him in connection with illegally distributing opioids and health care fraud.