Santa Rosa pain doctor accused of murder served jail time over previous misconduct with patients

The Santa Rosa doctor accused of causing the deaths of four patients by overprescribing pain medications previously served jail time and had his medical license revoked nearly three decades ago after multiple female patients in Shasta County accused him of touching them inappropriately.

Thomas Keller, 72, also made harassing phone calls to two patients, using sexually explicit language and, in one case, threatening to harm the woman and her family, according to court documents.

Keller, a one-time Army neurosurgeon who transitioned to pain management, served a six-month jail term after he pleaded no contest to charges of battery involving three women and making annoying phone calls to another female patient. His penalty included three years of probation and a $10,000 fine, court documents indicate.

In all, the Medical Board of California reported instances of abuse involving seven patients - all but one, improperly touched on one occasion. One woman also received harassing phone calls, as did an eighth woman who was not subjected to touching in the office. Keller would eventually settle six lawsuits for $95,000, court documents show.

Keller was able to win reinstatement of his medical license, though only after admitting to his misconduct and embracing 4½ years of intense psychotherapy and treatment, including a five-week inpatient program.

He was deemed rehabilitated when he was authorized to return to medicine in late 1994, though only under supervised conditions at first, including having a third party present when he examined women. He also was to continue in therapy.

Keller in 2008 set up his Santa Rosa practice, based out of an office on Farmers Lane. Prosecutors say it was there that his work as a pain specialist, treating patients with severe or chronic pain and some with terminal conditions, led to reckless overprescription of dangerous drugs.

He has pleaded not guilty in Sonoma County Superior Court to second-degree murder charges in the deaths of four patients, and he was back in court Tuesday for the beginning of a preliminary hearing in that case. The proceeding is meant to evaluate whether sufficient evidence exists to hold Keller over for trial.

A roughly similar case launched in 2015 against a Los Angeles doctor resulted in her conviction on three counts of second-degree murder and 20 other criminal counts. It was upheld last December by the California Court of Appeal. The doctor, Hsiu Ying “Lisa” Tseng, is serving 30 years to life in state prison.

But Keller’s attorney, John Cox, said the deaths at issue in his client’s case were accidental overdoses and suicides outside the doctor’s control.

In one case, no cause of death was actually determined, Cox said.

He said there are patient records that can demonstrate the doctor’s efforts to taper patients off high dosages and to discharge others who mixed drugs or refused to follow directions.

Cox said the criminal case is a political move by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to try to show he is taking action in the face of the nation’s growing opioid crisis.

“It has nothing to do with an individual dying,” he has said.

Though he has not seen the documents from his client’s earlier, misconduct case, Cox said Tuesday, “It’s completely irrelevant to the current charges.”

Keller was charged in the murder case last month but already had suspended his Farmers Lane medical practice more than 10 months earlier because of a federal grand jury indictment charging him with three counts of distributing drugs outside the scope of his practice and two counts of health care fraud.

That case is still pending. He faces a maximum of 45 years in federal prison and fines up to $1.5 million if convicted.

Keller’s sexual misconduct case resulted from behavior between March and December 1989, shortly after he was invited by a former professor to join him in private practice in Redding, where he would later report finding the environment “very competitive and stressful,” according to the state medical board’s 1994 decision to reinstate his license.

The professional pressure and social isolation he experienced exacerbated what were then undiagnosed psychological issues that drove him to further distance himself from others and avoid interpersonal interaction, the document says.

He was led eventually to “act out sexual fantasies with inappropriate people, rather than in an acceptable social context,” according to the narrative in the decision. “This conduct began ... when he introduced into his practice, a ‘modality of therapy which was akin to chiropractic.’ Petitioner admits that in the course of this therapy that he inappropriately touched female patients’ breasts and genitals.”

“...(H)e rationalized his behavior at the time on the basis that he was offering comfort and therapeutic treatment to his patients,” the documents states.

Keller ceased his practice after police notified him of patient complaints, testifying later that “he realized he had serious problems which needed to be addressed,” the decision states. He was reported to be an “enthusiastic and cooperative” patient in the ensuing years, the licensing board said, and continued his medical education.

He also attended college classes at Sonoma State University to improve his social skills and earned a master’s degree in public health at UC Berkeley in 1993, according to the medical board record.

In the meantime, he developed an “inner alarm system” and an understanding of interpersonal boundaries that helped him understand the harm he caused his patients earlier in his career, according to the medical board.

“Petitioner concedes he posed a danger to his female patients in 1989 and that he caused psychological harm to those patients whom he sexually abused,” the medical board decision states. “Petitioner expresses that he is now ‘very, very sorry for the things (he) did.’”