Dr. William Vicary Was Accused of Altering Notes He Took While Speaking With Erik Menendez

On June 30, 1990, Dr. William Vicary met with Erik Menendez for the first time at the request of his lawyer, Leslie Abramson. He and his brother Lyle Menendez had been in jail since March 1990 after they were arrested and charged with murdering their parents. Vicary was a forensic psychiatrist tasked with examining Erik, whose trial wouldn't start for another three years. Both he and Lyle would be tried together, though Lyle was represented by a different lawyer.

During Erik's trial, Vicary testified that he saw the younger Menendez brother on a weekly basis for about year. During these sessions, Vicary took copious handwritten notes, most of which were referenced during the trial. We say most because it turns out Vicary would later alter these notes. Where is Dr. William Vicary now? Here's what we know.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Vicary lost his license in June 2019. This occurred after the state accused him of "gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, prescribing without an appropriate exam, excessive prescribing, and inadequate record keeping." The complaint was filed in November 2017 and includes incidents that occurred between 1988 and 2016. When asked about the allegations, Vicary said virtually all of them were "without merit."

In several instances, Vicary was accused of overprescribing medications to patients. In 2004 he started treating a 50-year-old patient who later overdosed on cocaine and hydrocodone in 2014. During their time together, Vicary became aware of the fact that this patient was obtaining medication from various other medical professionals. Despite this, he continued prescribing the same medication to his patient. "The cocaine killed him — it wasn’t anything that I gave him," said Vicary.

On two separate occasions, Vicary prescribed drugs to undercover cops without looking into their medical history first. In April 2015, he prescribed Adderall to a police officer posing as a student who claimed they needed the drug in order to study. A month later, he increased the prescription and added Naproxen, a non-narcotic pain reliever. In June 2015, an undercover officer procured Xanax and Ambien from Vicary who once again neglected to look into the patient's mental health and medical history.

In December 1993, Vicary testified that Erik Menendez initially did not want to speak about the alleged sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father because he would be ostracized and treated "like the elephant man, " per the Los Angeles Times. He went on to say that it took Erik months to reveal what had happened to him and was crippled by his own anger and fear. "He was such a pathetic, wimpy, hopeless mess," said Vicary.

Two years later, during the second trial for both Menendez brothers, Vicary testified that he "rewrote pages of his clinical notes deleting potentially damaging material, knowing that his rewritten notes would be provided to prosecutors and used in court as though they were originals," according to medical board records.

Leslie Abramson told the Los Angeles Times that she never asked Vicary to do this. She insisted that he redact information a Superior Court judge had ruled inadmissible from their first trial. Abramson was cleared of any misconduct but in 1996, Vicary was removed from a panel of mental health professionals who can be called upon to testify in court. He told the Times that the bad news is, this ruined his reputation. On the other hand, he no longer had to "run himself ragged" driving to jails, juvenile halls, and hospitals.