Grand jury indicts doctor in 2009 car bomb attack that wounded head of Arkansas Medical Board

Arkansas doctor indicted in 2009 car bomb attack

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A federal grand jury has indicted an Arkansas doctor, saying he planted a car bomb that severely injured the chairman of a state board that had previously disciplined him, according to the indictment unveiled Wednesday.

Dr. Randeep Mann is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the February 2009 blast that hurt Dr. Trent Pierce, who lost his left eye and was severely burned.

Pierce heads the Arkansas State Medical Board, which told Mann to stop writing prescriptions for narcotics after several of his patients died.

U.S. Attorney Jane Duke called a news conference for later Wednesday with a representative from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mann’s attorney, Blake Hendrix, declined to immediately comment.

The indictment said Mann did “knowingly use, and attempt and conspire to use, a weapon of mass destruction against a person and property within the United States.”

Mann, a pain specialist from West Memphis, twice sued the medical board over disciplinary actions that included suspension of his license to prescribe drugs. Prescriptions written by Mann allegedly led to the deaths of 10 patients, according to the medical board’s investigation.

Additionally, the investigation revealed seven patients survived overdoses, including one who suffered a brain injury.

Pierce was injured in the blast that occurred when he reached down to move a stray tire from the path of his hybrid Lexus sport-utility vehicle, family friends have said. ATF agents have said the bomb was homemade, not manufactured military explosives or dynamite.