A report out of New York State, as seen in Newsday
Richard Karpf was bullied as a child and kicked out of his apartment by roommates while attending a Mexican medical school.
Dennis White started having panic attacks when he was 6 and suffered from sleep disorders and depression as an adult.
Their lives crossed in 1996 when Karpf became White's psychiatrist. Six years later, White called police and said Karpf had revealed a plot to kill people and feed their dismembered bodies to sharks.
Yesterday, the two men met again as White's medical malpractice trial against Karpf opened in State Supreme Court in Mineola.
In opening arguments, lawyers debated whether White remains psychologically damaged after, he told police, Karpf asked him to help purchase a gun with a silencer. White, 43, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident and is still afraid of Karpf, said his attorney, Ruth Bernstein of Manhattan.
"Dennis believes every day of his life that the defendant is still coming after him," Bernstein said.
Karpf, 55, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal possession of a weapon in 2004 and was sentenced to three months in jail, time he already had served. He is on probation through next year.
After White contacted police, they arranged for Karpf to meet an undercover officer, whom Karpf paid $1,600 for a .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun, a silencer and boxes of ammunition in the parking lot of the Westbury Home Depot.
Karpf, who surrendered his medical license after pleading guilty, insisted that the plot was a fantasy and he had no intention of carrying it out.
Karpf's attorney, CaraMia Hart of Manhattan, conceded that he told White of a "completely inappropriate plan" to commit murder and he was "appropriately" prosecuted. But she questioned whether White suffers more now than he did six years ago. "Was Dennis White hospitalized at any point? Rendered incapable of working?" Hart said.
Since Karpf's arrest, White has married and become a father, she said.
Bernstein said Karpf's patients did not know he suffered a "lifelong mental illness" while he continued to practice at his Garden City office.
"This very sick man had a license to practice medicine," she said. "How would anyone know that he was spiraling downward?"
On Dec. 26, 2002, she said, White walked into Karpf's office and found him "disheveled." Karpf asked White, a mechanic, to help him buy a car and a boat. Later, Karpf asked White about buying a gun and finding shark-infested waters. "Dennis was starting to think there was something very wrong," she said.
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