DALLAS COUNTY – The sentencing trial for a North Texas anesthesiologist convicted of tampering with IV bags was postponed for the fourth time Wednesday.
The hearing was scheduled for 10 a.m. at the federal courthouse in downtown Dallas, but CBS News Texas learned it was canceled an hour before it was to begin. A new date has not yet been set.
Dr. Reinaldo Ortiz’s sentence was originally scheduled for July 22, but was then postponed to September 16, and finally scheduled for September 18.
Ortiz faces up to 190 years in prison.
April, Ortiz Convicted On all 10 charges he committed. It started about two years agoA North Dallas surgery center run by Baylor Scott & White called police about a so-called “compromised” IV bag.
A week later, the Texas Medical Board temporarily suspended Ortiz’s medical license in connection with the misuse of IV bags.
According to the documents, Ortiz was seen on the facility’s surveillance cameras placing each IV bag into a device called a warmer in a hallway outside the operating room. Shortly after Ortiz placed the IV bag in the warmer, the patient began experiencing serious complications, according to the documents.
Ortiz also Linked to the death of a fellow anesthesiologistDr. Melanie Kasper, who died after she felt sick and put herself in an IV bag. That bag was also allegedly contaminated by Ortiz, but prosecutors did not charge Ortiz in Kasper’s death.