Doctor Charged with Causing Death of Slipknot’s Paul Gray

Slipknot bassist Paul Gray died of a drug overdose in 2010, and now his doctor is being charged with involuntary manslaughter in Gray’s death and the death of seven others.

Dr. Daniel Baldi is accused of prescribing narcotics to patients who died of drug overdoses. Court documents state that Baldi:

Did unintentionally cause the death of Paul Gray by the commission of an act likely to cause death or serious injury, to wit, continually wrote high-dose prescription narcotics to a known drug addict from 12/27/2005 until his death.

Baldi’s attorney, Guy Cook, entered a not guilty plea in court on Wednesday, and he was released on bail. The doctor is facing up to 16 years in prison if convicted on all counts. He said of the charges:

It is unprecedented to turn unfortunate deaths or medical results into a crime against a doctor… Unexpected deaths can occur in severe, chronic pain patients, unrelated to medical treatment. This is especially true with patients who are drug addicts or drug abusers.

Shawn Crahan of Slipknot is listed on the complaint and said:

None of it is going to bring back our brother Paul. This epidemic of this sort of activity is becoming more and more… evident. It truly is becoming a problem amongst people. And it trickles all the way down to the youth. And awareness needs to be brought about… not only substance abuse but the ability to acquire substances, to get chemicals and the efficiency of it… Hopefully justice will be served.

[MSN]

UPDATE: Slipknot has released an official statement regarding the charges. It is as follows:

As the loss of our brother Paul Gray is still very fresh for us in the Slipknot family, this new development has us all in a state of anger and sadness. The fact that this person took advantage of our brother's illness while he was in a position to help others has outraged everyone in our family. We can only hope that justice will be served so this can NEVER happen to anyone else ever again! Our thoughts go out to the families of the other victims. We plan to cooperate as much as we possibly can to ensure this tragedy is never repeated, and to make sure this man pays for what he has done.