Thread by @BrettKelman

Today, The @Tennessean published one of the strangest stories of my career. Actually, the article itself isn't that weird, but the story behind the story is bonkers. This is a thread. Here we go. 1/

I began this reporting four years ago at another newspaper 1,900 miles away. In 2015, I was working at @MyDesert in Palm Springs, California. It was a few days before I took a vacation. A private eye I knew – Bill – called me. He said he found something big. It felt clandestine.

I liked Bill, but I didn’t exactly trust him. He was a long-winded 70-something curmudgeon with a gravely voice who always told stories about his own greatness. (We have that in common.). With Bill, it was hard to tell truth from a boast. But I was so intrigued.

I drive to Bill’s house. His home office is a wild mess – weird electronics and case files and shotgun shells are scattered across his desk. I can’t remember if he had a claymore or if that was Ron Swanson. Maybe both.

Bill hands me a tube of prescription skin cream. (It looks like the blue creams in this photo.) I notice the name on the tube is not Bill. This is someone else's medicine. Bill says the cream is worth thousands of dollars. I roll my eyes.

Bill tells me a story. He says he stumbled upon a conspiracy where doctors in Tennessee are prescribing bullshit pain/scar cream to Marines in California. He thinks the goal is to defraud the government. Bill says he is working with the feds to catch these people.

I don’t buy it. I think Bill either discovered nothing or inflated his role in a small investigation. But I interview him just in case. Proof, he says, will come from a whistleblower lawsuit, but suit will be sealed for a while. I have to believe him, he says. I don't.

Then Bill says something that sticks with me. The Tennessee doctor is named Susy. He says this twice: “Who has ever heard of a doctor named Susy?” I’m insulted. My mother, a bad ass who could do anything, is named Susan.

I thank Bill and leave. I go on vacation to attend the wedding of one of my best friends. We are drunk and merry. I forget all about the pain cream. I go back to work and focus on other stories.

It is now 2018. After years of covering cops in the California desert, I got a new job as the health care reporter at The Tennessean in Nashville. I'm out of my element and I'm scared. I decide to work twice as hard so no one will notice.

I start reading all our old health stories, studying my new home and my new beat. One night, I come across a short, forgettable story about two doctors at an East Tennessee clinic who confessed to defrauding the military with pain cream.

One of the doctors is Susan Vergot. She goes by Susy.

"Who's ever heard of a doctor named Susy?"

I read everything I can find about her case. It turns out Susan Vergot and another doctor, Carl Lindblad, prescribed needless pain cream to California Marines to defraud a military insurance program called Tricare.

The creams cost $14,000, each. The whole scam cost the America taxpayer about $65 million. It was just like Bill said, only bigger than he knew.

By now, Bill’s whistleblower lawsuit is unsealed. It shows he communicated with the feds about the creams I saw in his home office back in 2015. A federal investigation into the conspiracy began 3 weeks after he handed over the creams to NCIS. Bill was right. It was true.

As of today, four people have pleaded guilty in this cream case – two doctors, a nurse practitioner and an ex-Marine. Three more suspects have been charged. More indictments are likely. The feds are also trying to seize property in East Tennessee, including this mansion estate.

Other journalists have published good articles on this case over the past few years, but nobody has the details in the story we published this morning. I’d be honored if you read it. tennessean.com/story/news/inv…

Also, there is a lesson here for young journalists: Don’t dismiss the weirdos and SAVE YOUR NOTES. I was only able to write this story because I went to Bill's house in 2015 and still had my notes from our interview years ago. @Poynter

Thanks for going on this journey with me. As always, buy a damn newspaper subscription already. bit.ly/2PnTQrx