A Texas anesthesiologist who tainted patients' IV bags with a deadly drug cocktail will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Following an eight-day trial, Raynaldo Riviera Ortiz Jr., 60, was handed down a 190-year sentence after a jury convicted him of four counts of tampering with consumer products resulting in serious bodily injury, one count of tampering with a consumer product, and five counts of intentional adulteration of a drug, according to prosecutors.
Ortiz learned his fate Wednesday, more than two years after he first began attacking patients at Surgicare North Dallas. Between May 2022 and August 2022, victims suffered cardiac emergencies during routine medical procedures performed by various doctors.
One month after the first known attack, a fellow anesthesiologist, Dr. Melanic Kaspar, was treating herself for dehydration with an IV bag when she suddenly died.
In August, doctors grew suspicious and "began to suspect tainted IV bags had caused the repeated crises" after an 18-year-old undergoing routine sinus surgery experienced a medical emergency, said prosecutors.
The investigation revealed Ortiz "surreptitiously injected IV bags of saline with epinephrine, bupivacaine and other drugs" and returned them to a bin, knowing they would be used on patients.
Surveillance footage captured the doctor retrieving IV bags and returning them to a bin shortly after. Video also showed him mixing vials of medication and watching as victims were carried out on gurneys by emergency responders.
"This disgraced doctor acted no better than an armed assailant spraying bullets indiscriminately into a crowd. Dr. Ortiz tampered with random IV bags, apparently unconcerned with who he hurt. But he wielded an invisible weapon, a cocktail of heart-stopping drugs, concealed inside an IV bag designed to help patients heal," U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton said in a statement. "On at least nine separate occasions, he essentially attacked unconscious patients lying on an operating table, and even killed a colleague."
While delivering victim impact statements, Dr. John Kaspar, the husband of the anesthesiologist who died, said he would be forever haunted by his wife's "lifeless eyes," while describing her as his "life" and the "strongest woman" he'd ever met.
"It's everything I wanted to hear," Kaspar said upon learning of Ortiz's sentence, according to KXAS-TV. "The judge was very kind. He said some great words. He specifically mentioned my wife's name and looked right at me and told me the things I wanted to hear – the things that needed to be said out loud – 'He did it.' It was the conclusion that I think everybody knew. He knew, I knew it, and now it's been put on record."
