Noted area plastic surgeon gets 10 days in jail
Dr. Scott Loessin's jet-set world -- a yacht, luxury cars, million-dollar home -- fueled by a successful plastic surgery practice came crashing down Tuesday when a judge found him guilty of violating a court order and sentenced him to 10 days in the not-so-deluxe confines of the Volusia County Branch Jail.
Loessin, 45, the chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Halifax Health, had been court-ordered twice to stay at least 500 feet away from his wife, Mary Kathryn Loessin, 44, and the lavish home they shared in Ormond Beach's Broadwater development. But on Feb. 27, the Daytona Beach Shores resident violated the injunction for protection against domestic violence when he came to the couple's former home with a flatbed truck to retrieve his Porsche.
"He hardly needed another auto," said Christopher Wickersham, an attorney representing the wife after the sentencing, browsing through a list of automobiles Loessin owns.
The list included a Rolls Royce Phantom, a Dodge Viper, a Ferrari, two Mercedes Benzes, a Lexus GX, a Lamborghini Murcielago, and a Dodge Grand Caravan -- which, together with the Porsche, are valued at approximately $1.1 million.
A peek into the couple's divorce file -- six volumes with several hundred pages each -- is a window into the lives of the rich and locally famous. They contain allegations of drug use and accusations that Dr. Scott Loessin was spending extravagantly to draw down marital assets he might have to pay in the divorce in addition to looking into having his wife killed.
Indeed, the stakes are high.
The couple's Ormond Beach home in the Broadwater development, valued at $2.3 million, was in 2004 the seventh-most expensive waterfront home in Volusia County and, in 2005, the setting for swanky American Cancer Society benefit. Last month, however, the bank filed to foreclose on the 5,887-square-foot home.
A 101-foot yacht, named for the couple's daughter, is valued at $3.5 million. The "Gabriella" rents for $35,000 a week.
The captain of that boat, Bob Murphy, reported to police that Scott Loessin had showed an interest in hiring someone to kill his wife, according to the couple's divorce file.
The case was dropped for lack of evidence, Ormond Beach Police Sgt. Kenny Hayes said Monday. According to the report, an investigator posed as the boat captain in "controlled" phone calls to Scott Loessin, who then went to police concerned the phone calls were a set-up by his wife.
Scott Loessin's attorney, Steve Guardiano, argued that his client did not know an injunction existed because he believed that a June 2006 injunction was modified or merged into the couple's divorce agreement. Guardiano said Scott Loessin got bad advice from two attorneys and he had "no willful intent" to violate the court order.
But Wickersham said a Feb. 4 divorce agreement declared that both parties should not have contact with each other and specifically prohibited Scott Loessin to come within 500 feet of his wife.
Scott Loessin, who practices in Daytona Beach, testified he asked Ormond Beach police to accompany him to the house, but the officer testified that Scott Loessin was already on the property when he got there.
"He had a flatbed in the driveway and the gate was open," the officer testified. "He was on the property and in front of the property."
Once Scott Loessin was found guilty of disobeying the judge's order, Guardiano argued that a jail sentence would inconvenience his client because it would keep him away from his practice and from on-call availability for trauma cases at Halifax Health Medical Center. Guardiano argued that a fine would be appropriate.
"Do you believe this court is able to determine a fine that will get your client's attention?" Circuit Judge John V. Doyle asked Guardiano before pronouncing the sentence. "He admits to making $1.5 million a year and his wife says he makes $2 million."
Whether Scott Loessin's ability to practice medicine will be affected by this sentencing is not clear. A review of a doctor's privileges to admit to Halifax Health's hospitals is done if a committee of peers determines the conviction indicates the doctor's ability to care for patients has been compromised, Halifax Health spokesman John Gonda said.
A doctor in Monroe County also filed an injunction for protection against Scott Loessin. Court records show Dr. Robert Berg of Key Largo, the ex-husband of Scott Loessin's new girlfriend, filed the injunction for protection against repeat violence.
THIS DOCTOR IS LOSING IT! HE HAS MAJOR ANGER ISSUES TOWARD WOMEN, DON'T LET HIM DO SURGERY ON YOU, HIS MIND IS VERY SCREWED UP!
HE WANTED TO KILL HIS WIFE! STAY AWAY FROM HIM
Not a boob doctor
Daytona Beach, Florida
U.S.A.