The Associated Press State & Local Wire August 15, 2007 Wednesday 11:26 PM GMT Murder suspect may have believed doctor made him impotent BYLINE: By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL LENGTH: 836 words DATELINE: CHICAGO A man being held in the Caribbean in the slaying of a Chicago dermatologist allegedly stabbed him because he believed acne medication the doctor prescribed had rendered him impotent, according to the doctor's son and a law enforcement source. The source also said scientific evidence links Hans Peterson to the crime, saying that blood in Dr. David Cornbleet's downtown office where he was killed matched DNA from a cigarette found at Peterson's New York apartment. In an article in Wednesday's Chicago Sun-Times, the doctor's son wrote that he has known for months that police suspected Peterson in the Oct. 24 stabbing death of his father. "The police were building up the case," Jon Cornbleet said in an article under his byline. "It was hard very hard knowing." Cornbleet wrote that Peterson had been a one-time patient of his father, and was taking the acne drug Accutane. "This person was impotent, and he blames my father," he wrote. Dr. Charles Zugerman, an associate professor of clinical dermatology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said he has never seen a report of erectile dysfunction or impotence associated with the drug. "I've never seen it cause any erectile dysfunction or impotence and I've never seen it reported," Zugerman said. In 2005, a small study in a Spanish-language medical journal reported six patients taking the drug had difficulty maintaining erections along with clinical symptoms of depression. Women taking Accutane are strongly urged to avoid pregnancy because the drug causes birth defects. Men taking the drug are encouraged to tell their doctors if their partner plans to become pregnant because the drug can be present in semen. But, while the drug's label notes numerous adverse reactions, including aggression and violent behavior, there is no mention of impotence. The law enforcement source confirmed Jon Cornbleet's description of the alleged motive in the slaying of the 64-year-old dermatologist. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because a possible motive and the suspect's identity has not been made public yet. At a news conference on Tuesday, a man turned himself in to French authorities in French St. Martin, which shares a tiny Caribbean island with Dutch St. Maarten. Police would not release the name of the suspect for whom an arrest warrant was issued June 8, but according to Cook County Circuit Court records, Peterson was named in a June 8 first-degree murder arrest warrant with bond set at $1 million. Officials were trying to determine if Peterson, 29, had obtained French citizenship after the slaying. The law enforcement source said that Peterson was able to obtain French citizenship because one of his parents is French. If Peterson is a French citizen, it could make it more difficult to extradite him to the United States. Pascale Furlong, a spokeswoman for the French Consulate in Chicago, said that France does not, in principle, extradite French citizens. But Furlong said the government is trying to determine the citizenship status of the suspect. French law has made extradition difficult before. In 1998, for example, Pennsylvania passed a law that provided a retrial for convicted murderer Ira Einhorn to satisfy a French requirement that foreign nationals not be extradited based on trials in absentia. The former hippie guru was returned to the United States in 2001 and convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 bludgeoning death of his former girlfriend. The possibility that prosecutors could seek the death penalty against Peterson might make French officials more reluctant to allow his extradition. "That might be a stumbling block," said Furlong. "We don't have a death penalty." Cook County authorities could promise not to seek the death penalty in return for extradition, but Bob Milan, the first assistant Cook County state's attorney, said the office would have to discuss it with the Cornbleet family. Milan, who would not identify the suspect, said it is important that the suspect be brought back to Chicago rather than be tried in a French court in St. Martin. "Their maximum for murder is 20 years and he would serve 16," said Milan. "That's unacceptable." Milan said his office is researching whether any treaty between the U.S. and France requires prosecutors in the U.S. to guarantee they not seek the death penalty in order to have suspects extradited. Mexico requires such guarantees, and they have been given in a number of cases. In one, Milan's office guaranteed in writing that it would not seek the death penalty for Roberto Ramirez, who fled to Mexico after he allegedly raped and murdered Melissa Dorner in her Chicago apartment in 2005. In another case, prosecutors in Denver agreed not to charge a man accused of killing an off-duty Denver police officer with first-degree murder in exchange for his extradition from Mexico in 2005. Raul Gomez-Garcia was returned to Denver, where he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 80 years in prison. LOAD-DATE: August 16, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire Chicago Tribune (Illinois) Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News August 17, 2007 Friday Medicine blamed in killing of doctor: Family of suspect issues statement BYLINE: Angela Rozas, Chicago Tribune SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS LENGTH: 805 words Aug. 17--A relative of the man implicated in the 2006 slaying of a Loop dermatologist issued a statement Thursday blaming in part an acne drug prescribed to him for his alleged actions. Hans Peterson, 29, turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin last week and allegedly confessed to killing Dr. David Cornbleet in October. Authorities are trying to extradite him to face murder charges in Illinois. An e-mail sent by a Peterson relative who did not identify himself said that the family has received a lot of hate mail and decided to issue a statement to "stop the harassment." "The Peterson family is writing to educate those righteous Chicagoans who are sending the hate mail and phone calls and to tell our perspective to the decent Chicagoans on who are the villains in this tragedy as there are many fingers to point," the e-mail began. "It is that way in many tragedies." The Cornbleet family declined to comment on the wide-ranging accusations made in the e-mail but urged whoever wrote the e-mail to advise Peterson to agree to be extradited to the United States to face trial. The e-mail is signed by an anonymous member of the Peterson family, but a person who answered the telephone at the Peterson family home in Oregon confirmed that the e-mail was a statement from the family. The e-mail contended that Peterson was in a "depressive psychosis" in the summer of 2002 when he was prescribed the drug Accutane after meeting with Cornbleet. In another e-mail, the family member said that Peterson took the drug one or two times, but stopped taking it after feeling adverse effects. "The Peterson family has suffered for over 5 years, and we have lost a family member who was a sweet and gentle soul before this tragedy," the e-mail said. "Our hearts do go out to the Cornbleets -- the other victims in this tragedy." The family statement blamed the Food and Drug Administration and the manufacturer of the drug, Roche Pharmaceuticals, for allowing the drug to remain on the market and physicians for prescribing it. "So...who are the [villains] in this tragedy?," the e-mail said. "Roche Pharmaceuticals for continuing to have this drug on the market ...The FDA for allowing this drug to remain on the market ...Any physician that would prescribe this drug without heeding the warnings." Warnings on Accutane's prescriptions caution that it possibly can cause depression or psychosis and acknowledges reports of people on the drug exhibiting aggressive behavior. But the company maintains there is no reliable scientific evidence that the drug causes those symptoms, according to its Web site. The family member also contended in the e-mails that Peterson told his family that Cornbleet spent only a few minutes with him before prescribing the drug and did not ask him about his medical history. Peterson allegedly told French authorities the drug caused him to be impotent. "In the horrible summer of 2002 when Hans went into depressive psychosis, he related to us that Dr. Cornbleet spent only a few minutes with him before handing him a prescription for Accutane," the e-mail said. "He did not ask any questions about psychiatric problems and did not tell Hans that he was prescribing a dangerous drug." Relatives of Cornbleet, who was widely described as a caring and attentive doctor who worked long hours to meet his patients' needs, took strong issue with the contentions of the Peterson family. "It's not indicative of how my father ran his practice, and if Hans would like to discuss this in a civil manner, we would welcome it in an American court," said Jon Cornbleet, the victim's son. The younger Cornbleet and his family this week are trying to garner public support for extraditing Peterson. That has been complicated because Peterson, a U.S. citizen whose mother is French, obtained French citizenship while in St. Martin. The French do not extradite citizens who may face capital cases. An affidavit filed in federal court to obtain an arrest warrant for Peterson was unsealed Thursday and provided more detail about how authorities tracked Peterson to St. Martin. According to the document, Peterson boarded an Executive Air flight in Puerto Rico for the French West Indies Dec. 29. In May, Peterson's former roommate told the FBI that he had kept in telephone contact with the suspect and that Peterson had asked him to have his mail forwarded to the island. -------