Navy Heart Surgeon Guilty of Manslaughter in Patient Deaths

A military jury on Wednesday convicted Donal M. Billig, a Navy surgeon, on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of negligent homicide in the deaths of patients in open heart operations at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Billig, former chief of heart surgery at Bethesda, considered the Navy’s premier hospital, was found innocent of two charges of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of two other patients.

He also was acquitted of five of 24 charges of dereliction of duty stemming from other operations at Bethesda. He was convicted of varying degrees of dereliction on the remaining counts.

11-Year Term Possible

Billig faces a possible maximum sentence of 11 years and nine months in prison under the convictions and dismissal from the Navy.

The 55-year-old Navy commander stood silently between his two military attorneys as the foreman, Rear Adm. Harry S. Quast, read the verdict of the jury of nine Navy officers in the 8-week-long court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard.

Billig’s wife, Bonnie, sat in the front row and left the courtroom silently with her husband.

The judge, Capt. Philip Roberts, said the court would reconvene on Monday to begin hearing evidence before the jury decides on a sentence.

The jury returned its verdict after deliberating a little more than 10 hours over two days.

It found Billig guilty of lesser offenses in some of the charges specified by the government, resulting in a complicated verdict that caused the judge to recess briefly to ascertain that the jury was in agreement.

Verdict Called Fair

The assistant prosecutor, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Curreri said, “I think it’s quite fair.”

The manslaughter charges stem from open-heart operations Billig conducted at Bethesda in 1983 and 1984. The patients each died during or soon after the surgery from what the government contends were gross surgical errors.

The 24 dereliction charges stemmed from operations Billig conducted in mid-1983, at a time when the government contends he was allowed to operate only under the supervision of another surgeon.