Inglewood Doctor Convicted of Fraud : Court: After six weeks of deliberation, a jury finds the podiatrist guilty on 18 counts of cheating insurers.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted an Inglewood podiatrist of insurance fraud Friday after a marathon eight-month trial over whether Brian Douglas Carey submitted bills for unnecessary work on his patients’ corns, bunions and ingrown toenails.

In a case that targeted the work he performed and subsequent insurance billings, Carey was found guilty on 18 counts of insurance fraud, attempted insurance fraud, grand theft and presenting false claims. In one instance, prosecutors claimed, Carey submitted bills for $28,000 to remove a bunion, and did surgery on a patient who complained only of scaling, itchy feet.

Immediately after the verdict, Judge William R. Pounders departed from what he called his usual habit of allowing white-collar criminals to remain free before sentencing and ordered the podiatrist taken into custody. Pounders said that during the course of the trial he concluded that Carey was “a master manipulator. . . . He is a major flight risk.”

When Carey’s attorney, William Ringgold, said the Pacific Palisades resident was indigent--his two attorneys’ fees are being paid by the county--and had “nowhere to go,” Pounders indicated he was inclined to believe Carey had money hidden in overseas banks, as an estranged wife had asserted. He set sentencing for April 23.

Carey, silver-haired and dressed in a suit, said nothing as he was led away in handcuffs. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

Pounders also told the jury that the six weeks they had taken to reach a verdict was the “second longest (deliberation) I’ve ever seen,” exceeded only by the jury in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial, which deliberated for three months in 1989 and 1990.

The judge congratulated the tired-looking group for sticking with the complicated testimony and evidence, which included voluminous case records, charts and X-rays. Pounders said the trial “was not the kind of thing you see on television where things are exciting moment to moment.”

Jury foreman Jesse Brazier, 54, a state Public Utilities Commission employee, said, “We had a difficult time.”

“It was rough,” Derek Palacios, a court clerk serving on the panel, agreed. To reach their decisions, he said, the group ignored the amounts of money Carey charged and individually went through the records of 26 patients to decide whether the work done was warranted.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Albert H. MacKenzie said he felt the verdict showed “a doctor can be convicted for performing unnecessary surgery.”

Carey will definitely appeal, Ringgold said. “He feels he’s been wrongly convicted.”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Anne Mendoza, in court to hear the verdict, said the state plans to proceed with action to revoke Carey’s license.