Remember When?
Infamous hand doctor claims he was sleep drug unaware when he choked & sexually harassed flight attendants
Like Patrick and Kerry Kennedy before him, notorious Brown Hand Center doc Michael Brown wants everyone to believe that some well-known accomplices are involved in a recent bout of airplane rage — prescription sleep aids.
Lawyers for Brown claim a combination of wine and Restoril were to blame for a Jan. 1 outburst which landed Brown in a Miami federal court for allegedly choking and sexually harassing a pair of British Airways flight attendants. (Brown also allegedly threatened to get naked in front of the entire plane in the incident.)
According to legal paperwork obtained by CultureMap, Brown's attorneys also hope to exclude two rather damning pieces of testimony put forth by prosecutors.
Brown claims he has no recollection of the whole thing.
In a new set of court documents brought to light by the Houston Press's Craig Malisow, Brown's legal team provides an FDA-approved warning from the makers of Restoril that tells potential users that they may "get up out of bed and do an activity that you do not know you are doing." Activity, which is promptly forgotten the next morning, is said to be even more likely when the user drinks alcohol.
CultureMap first broke the news of this expected legal defense in a story on Feb. 6. In that piece, Brown's attorney detailed many of the Restoril claims that appear in the new court documents.
The defense also provides an entertaining list of common Restoril-induced activities, including "sleep-driving," "sleep-walking," "making and eating food," "talking on the phone" and "having sex."
According to legal paperwork obtained by CultureMap, Brown's attorneys also hope to exclude two rather damning pieces of testimony put forth by prosecutors.
First up is an alleged fiasco from three years ago in which the doctor's now-estranged wife Rachel Brown warns him about mixing prescription drugs and alcohol. Not heeding her advice, Dr. Brown gets "wild" and chases her with a firearm.
The other incident involves Brown on a flight to Argentina in 2009. The doctor's former bodyguard — listed only by the initials M.J.S. — observed that Brown has urinated all over the walls and floor of the airplane restroom. When confronted about the mess, the doctor told airport security he'd "taken too much of an unspecified medication."
Brown's lawyers contend these pieces of testimony only seek to place their client "in a bad light" rather than lay out facts pertaining directly to the British Airways choking outburst.
