Dr. John S. Mancoll Mancoll was arrested in August and charged with three felony drug offenses and two counts of misdemeanor theft in Virginia Beach General District Court. (Photo by Jan Gaillard)
NORFOLK — A Virginia Beach plastic surgeon was found guilty Thursday of illegally possessing two highly addictive prescription painkillers, but acquitted of more serious charges accusing him of stealing pills from patients.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Norfolk issued its verdict in the case of Dr. John Stuart Mancoll after about three hours of deliberations. Mancoll, 59, the owner of Mancoll Plastic Surgery, could get up to two years in prison when he’s sentenced Oct. 20 for the misdemeanor convictions.
The longtime cosmetic surgeon had faced five charges: two misdemeanor counts relating to prescription drugs found in his possession, and three felony counts accusing him of stealing medications from patients.
Mancoll was already under investigation when two Virginia Beach police officers pulled him over in August 2021 for driving erratically in his Porsche Panamera sedan.
He consented to a search of his vehicle, where the officers found three pill bottles in his backpack. One contained Percocet and Dilaudid tablets that investigators determined didn’t match any of his past prescriptions, but did match prescriptions given to his patients.
Investigators then conducted a search of his medical office, where they found a box under his desk containing painkillers that had been returned by his patients.
Mancoll testified he asked patients to bring back pills they hadn’t used — or had had an adverse reaction to — so he could properly dispose of them. He said he either flushed them down the toilet or disposed of them at the hospital. Three other doctors who testified during the trial, including a longtime friend of Mancoll’s, said they’d never heard of a doctor asking patients to return pills.
Several patients who gave pills back testified they’d either used none, or just one, yet more than 100 were missing from the bottles when investigators seized them.
Prosecutors John Butler and Rebecca Gantt argued Mancoll, who suffers from various ailments and had been getting painkillers prescribed to him for years, was an addict who relied on patients’ pills when he couldn’t obtain them legally.
“You may believe that he’s a nice man. You may believe he’s charming,” Butler said in his closing arguments. “As nice of a guy as he may be, it still doesn’t take away from the fact that he violated the law.”
One former patient, and the parents of another patient, testified they saw Mancoll pocket pills he’d prescribed to them. In both instances, they said the doctor poured pills from a bottle onto his ungloved hand to show them how they could be cut in half if needed, then returned some — but not all — to the bottle.
In his testimony, Mancoll denied being an addict or stealing from patients. As for the drugs found in his car, he said someone must have planted them.
Defense attorneys James Broccoletti and Mario Lorello suggested in their arguments that two former employees who were angry with Mancoll for not letting them out of their no-compete contracts had placed the pills there. The employees had been cooperating with investigators and telling them about the doctor’s movements, including the day he was stopped.
Mancoll has continued working as a plastic surgeon during the nearly two years his case has been pending. It was unclear Thursday what impact his misdemeanor convictions will have on his ability to continue practicing.
Jane Harper, [email protected]
