An asshat twofer

First, M. Moore and now the Philadelphia abortion doctor - from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

DEATH'S DOLLARS
How many severed baby spines does it take to pay for a $984,000 shore house?

How many severed infant feet is a boat worth?

And what part of Kermit Gosnell's clinic paid to keep his mistress, 41 years younger, on the payroll?

As investigators and civil attorneys build their case against Gosnell, charged last month with killing seven babies and a woman at his hellish West Philly clinic, a larger question looms:

What did he do with the money?

According to the grand jury's report, it's estimated that Gosnell, 69, made almost $1.8 million each year in abortions alone - and most of it was cash from desperate, poor women.

That figure does not account for any of the money he took in from allegedly selling illegal prescriptions to drug addicts in his community, including his notable distinction of being one of the top three prescribers of OxyContin in Pennsylvania, something federal authorities continue to investigate.

But when brought before a judge Friday to explain why he and his wife, Pearl, had not hired attorneys, Gosnell claimed to be broke.

The judge didn't buy it and refused to appoint public defenders for the couple. They have until Wednesday to hire a lawyer.

Just where all the blood and drug money went is still unknown, according to Sol Weiss, senior partner at Anapol Schwartz, the firm representing the family of Karnamaya Mongar, the patient whom Gosnell is accused of murdering.

"You just don't do the things he did unless you're motivated totally by greed," Weiss said. "We're doing our own investigation into the money, but we don't have any answers right now. I don't think anybody does."

Joanne Pescatore and Christine Wechsler, the assistant district attorneys prosecuting the case, agreed.

"The money's unaccounted for," Pescatore said. "The only thing we know about is the money taken out of the house."

When investigators searched Gosnell's massive, three-story brick home at 32nd Street and Mantua Avenue, they discovered $240,000 in cash and a gun in a filing cabinet in his 12-year-old daughter's bedroom, according to the grand jury report.

A bayside house and more
Aside from hiding their profits in their little girl's closet, Gosnell and his wife also invested in real estate. Together, they own as many as 17 properties, according to published reports; prosecutors said they know of at least seven. That includes at least five in Philadelphia and a house with two decks and a boat dock in Brigantine.

Last week, a boat sat covered in front of the shore house, which is near a golf course and just minutes from Atlantic City. At the rear of the house, a wall of windows provides a stunning view overlooking Somers Bay.

According to the Atlantic County Board of Taxation, the Gosnells bought the shore house in 1992 for $275,000. It was assessed last year at $984,000.

Gosnell's assets stand in stark contrast to the bargain-basement conditions at his West Philadelphia clinic, where blood caked the floor, fetuses filled the freezers and rusted, infected equipment spread venereal diseases, according to the grand jury's report.

The doctor spent little of his money on the clinic, and hired unqualified staffers so that he could pay them meager wages, often in cash, grand jurors said. He also "insisted" on reusing plastic instruments that were supposed to be used only once, the grand jury said.

He didn't even spend money on robes for his patients, who instead were covered with bloodstained blankets, the report said.

"The only thing Gosnell seemed to care about was the cash he raked in from his illegal operations," grand jurors wrote. "Because the real business of the 'Women's Medical Society' was not health; it was profit."

I hope this guy spends at least twenty years doing hard time and dies sick and penniless. To do this to a viable infant is heinous, to manipulate his patients this way reserves him a special place in hell. Words fail...