A former local chiropractor said a federal judge violated his due process rights by making him prove that he withdrew from a scheme to defraud a health insurance company.

Brent J. Detelich, 38, of Clearwater, Fla., formerly of Hermitage and Clark, was sentenced in April to 3 years in prison for his 2007 conviction on charges of health care and mail fraud.

Detelich, who is being held in the minimum security Pensacola Federal Prison Camp, owned Detelich Chiropractic and Advanced Medical and Holistic of Hermitage, both formerly of Hermitage. A jury found that Detelich submitted bills to Highmark Inc. for treatments that were not rendered to patients.

While Detelich has made no public statements on the case, his attorney Robert J. Ridge of Thorp Reed & Armstrong, Pittsburgh, has said Detelich admitted he was guilty of some of the wrongdoing.

U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti, Pittsburgh, recognized that Detelich went from a substance-abusing party boy and less-than-stellar father and husband to a devoted family man, compassionate friend and model citizen who helped many people overcome personal, family and business problems.

The timing of Detelich’s transformation and how it affected his employees gets to the heart of his appeal.

Ridge said Detelich tried to withdraw from the illegal scheme by instituting ethics policies to bring Advanced Medical’s business practices into legal compliance, so it was the prosecution’s responsibility to rebut the evidence.

Judge Conti erred, Ridge said, by telling the jury that Detelich had to provide evidence of his “complete withdrawal” from the scheme.

Detelich was under no obligation to prove he withdrew from the scheme, Ridge said and there was no evidence that Detelich participated in it after Nov. 3, 2000.

The date is important because the charges have a five-year statute of limitations, and Detelich was indicted Nov. 3, 2005. Ridge claimed Detelich’s alleged illegal conduct ceased prior to November 2000, while prosecutors, the jury and the judge concluded it continued into 2001.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Donovan Cocas, Pittsburgh, responded that Detelich initially proposed the “complete withdrawal” language. He also said Detelich never told any of his co-conspirators to stop the fraudulent billing. Even though he moved to California about September 2000, Detelich still owned the business and controlled its finances, Cocas said, meaning “He was the only one to benefit from ... the fraudulent scheme.”

After the business closed in March 2002, Detelich persuaded witnesses not to talk or “handled” them to keep them quiet, Cocas said. He called that conduct “inconsistent with one who had withdrawn from the scheme years earlier.”