COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former Mount Carmel physician Dr. William Husel has surrendered his medical license, leading the state medical board to permanently revoke – barring him from being able to practice medicine in the state of Ohio.
This move comes after Husel was acquitted of 14 counts of murder last month. He had been accused of ordering fatal doses of fentanyl and other drugs for patients under his care.
His acquittal comes more than three years after the state medical board suspended his license and after Mount Carmel Health System fired him over questions about his medical care.
In his two-page letter to the medical board, Husel acknowledges that “I understand that as a result of the permanent surrender herein I will no longer be permitted to practice osteopathic medicine and surgery in any form or manner in the state of Ohio.”
Records show that Husel surrendered his license in a letter to the State Medical Board of Ohio on May 5, acknowledging that he was willingly making the decision. The medical board on Wednesday voted to permanently revoked his license to practice in Ohio.
His license was suspended in January 2019 after he was accused of killing 25 patients under his care through overprescribing medications including fentanyl and others. Dr. Husel’s license expired on Oct. 1, 2020.
Shortly after the verdict of his murder trial, Attorney Jose Baez told reporters during a virtual news conference: “The truth was William Husel was an innocent, but it was incredibly difficult and he was wrongly charged and thankfully justice prevailed it was very difficult a and challenging case.”
Throughout the nine-week trial, Husel’s legal defense team had argued that Husel was providing comfort care to dying patients when he ordered doses of fentanyl and other drugs, but prosecutors argued his doses were unnecessary and ultimately hastened his patients’ deaths.
Jurors were given the option to choose between murder or a lesser charge of attempted murder. Ultimately, jurors found Husel not guilty on all counts.
The age of the patients who died ranged from 37 to 82. The first patient death was in May 2015. The last three died in November 2018.
He was initially charged with 25 murder counts, but the judge agreed to dismiss 11 of those counts in January.
Husel would have faced a sentence of life in prison with parole eligibility in 15 years had he been found guilty of just one count of murder.
10TV News spoke to one of the jurors in the trial Wednesday. Damon Massey said that “the prosecution did not give us enough to call this man guilty in the court of law, but a lot of us felt like the way he handled things, he was guilty of something.”
Massey went on to say the prosecution failed to prove its case or prove that Husel intended to hasten the deaths of his patients.
10TV's Ashley Bornancin speaks with one of the jurors involved in Husel's trial. Tune in to 10TV News at 11 to learn why the number of patients further led to the innocent verdict and how jurors felt at the end of the trial.