Secretly Recorded Phone Calls Played in Doctor’s Poisoning Trial
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iStock/Thinkstock(HOUSTON) — Prosecutors played intimate phone calls secretly taped between two Texas doctors in a trial accusing one jealous lover of poisoning the other.
The assault trial for Dr. Ana Gonzalez-Angulo, 43, began Monday in Houston where she is accused of poisoning Dr. George Blumenschein, an oncologist at the prestigious cancer hospital MD Anderson.
The world-renowned cancer researcher’s intimate phone calls were secretly taped by Blumenschein. In one of the phone calls played for the jury Monday, Gonzalez-Angulo tries to convince Blumenschein his longtime girlfriend, Evette Toney, was the one who poisoned him.
“Why in Christ would I ever hurt you? Why?” Gonzalez-Angulo says in one of the calls.
“Why would Evette hurt me?” Blumenschein responds.
“I don’t know, I don’t know you two,” Gonzalez-Angulo replies. “I would’ve run away a long time ago. …You seem to know things better. You seem to know her better. You trust her.”
Gonzalez-Angulo, a fellow oncologist at MD Anderson, allegedly spiked the coffee with a sweet-tasting chemical used in antifreeze in January 2013, prosecutors say. The chemical is also commonly found in medical labs, including those at MD Anderson.
The jury also heard from Toney Monday, who tearfully recounted how she miscarried while Blumenschein was carrying on an affair with Gonzalez-Angulo.
“He said he was not attracted to her,” Toney testified. “He was adamant. He said it was just work.”
Prosecutors allege that Gonzalez-Angulo poisoned the coffee after Blumenschein picked Toney over her.
The poisoning left Blumenschein with permanent kidney damage, according to testimony from doctors who treated him. Blumenschein took the stand Friday and described the day Gonzalez-Angulo allegedly poisoned him.
“She said she had a special Colombian coffee for me to try,” Blumenschein testified.
Blumenschein said he asked Gonzalez-Angulo why the coffee tasted so sweet and that she responded that she had put Splenda in it.
Gonzalez-Angulo has pleaded not guilty, but if convicted on the felony charge of aggravated assault, she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
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