By Julie Manganis
SALEM — During the summer of 2007, Kristen LaBrie asked her son's doctor to prescribe a liquid form of the medication she was supposed to give him, prosecutors say. She told doctors it was hard to get the autistic boy to take the pills that were part of his chemotherapy regimen for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
But prosecutors say LaBrie wasn't even trying to give her son methotrexate pills — she didn't fill the prescriptions she was given that August.
She also failed to fill son Jeremy Fraser's prescriptions again in October, November and December, prosecutor Kate MacDougall said during LaBrie's arraignment yesterday on new charges that include attempted murder.
Jeremy died in March at the age of 9.
LaBrie, 37, of 15 Cleveland Road, Salem, was released yesterday on $15,000 cash bail after pleading not guilty to charges of attempted murder, child endangerment, permitting substantial bodily injury to a child and permitting substantial bodily injury to a disabled person at her arraignment yesterday in Salem Superior Court. If convicted, she faces up to 40 years in prison.
LaBrie was barely audible as she uttered the words "not guilty" on each of the counts read by a clerk.
Her lawyer, Kevin James, argued for her to be released on her own recognizance, as she had been prior to Friday's indictment. LaBrie was arrested Sunday evening.
"She is a victim. She is a mother that took care of her child," James said, under great stress on her job and her finances.
It was a treatment regimen that LaBrie's lawyer said was made more difficult by Jeremy's autism. James argued that each trip to the hospital for chemotherapy took six or seven hours, disrupting LaBrie's ability to hold a job.
But MacDougall argued that LaBrie had options and could have gotten help from a team at the hospital that included a nurse and a social worker, as well as members of her family, with whom she lived.
Labrie "never expressed misgivings" about her ability to comply with the regimen, MacDougall said. In fact, she led doctors to believe that she was giving Jeremy his medications, even asking for new syringes to administer the liquid medication, the prosecutor said.
By February, doctors were treating Fraser for what they thought was simply a bout of the flu, MacDougall told a judge. They told LaBrie to briefly suspend the chemotherapy, which was compromising his immune system, until the boy was feeling better.
But when LaBrie never followed up with the doctors, they became concerned — most parents of children with cancer are usually eager to get their kids back on chemotherapy as soon as possible, MacDougall said.
Prosecutor: Pharmacy blamed
That's when they learned that "multiple" prescriptions for Jeremy's medication had gone unfilled. And Jeremy's cancer, once considered to have a 90 percent cure rate, had returned in a form that was resistant to the drugs, said the prosecutor.
When first confronted about the unfilled prescriptions, LaBrie insisted that the pharmacy where she filled the prescriptions, a local Stop & Shop, must have made an error, MacDougall said.
But an investigation revealed that not only did the pharmacy have no record of those prescriptions being filled, but neither the insurance company that provided coverage for Jeremy's treatment nor MassHealth had any record of paying for the medications in those months.
MacDougall said the indictments were the result of an "extensive" grand jury investigation.
She told Judge Richard Welch that she has "grave concerns" that LaBrie would flee the state if she did not have to post bail. MacDougall asked for $25,000 cash bail.
In a similar vein, MacDougall had asked on Friday to keep the indictment sealed until LaBrie's arrest, saying she was concerned that LaBrie posed a flight risk. MacDougall noted that LaBrie had failed to show up for a court proceeding immediately after her son's death last March, when she was still facing just a child endangerment charge.
The prosecutor also noted LaBrie had taken trips out of state "on multiple occasions."
And, "Ms. LaBrie has substantially changed her appearance in the past six months," the prosecutor noted in her affidavit seeking the arrest warrant on Friday.
Family members posted the bail, in cash, late yesterday afternoon. Initially, one family member offered to put up his home, only to be told that Massachusetts courts do not accept property for bail and that he would have to come up with the cash.
A pretrial conference is scheduled for Aug. 27.
The indictments do not include a charge of manslaughter or murder. Prosecutors would not comment on that. To convict LaBrie of either charge would have required prosecutors to show beyond a reasonable doubt that LaBrie's actions caused Jeremy's death.
Eric Fraser, LaBrie's ex-husband and Jeremy's father, said he's putting his faith in prosecutors.
"I believe in the district attorney," he said outside court.
He said yesterday's court hearing provided him with details he didn't know about the missed medications.
Fraser, accompanied by his lawyer, declined to comment on the decision by prosecutors not to pursue a murder or manslaughter charge.
He told reporters that he still grieves the death of his son. "Every day is different," Fraser said. "I get through them."
