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Pediatric dentist Drueciel Ford, 50, was acquitted March 5 on over 60 criminal charges. Ford was accused of over-sedating patients and causing the heart attack and brain damage of 18-year-old Melissa “Missy” McGrath. Despite the acquittal, Ford may face retrial on three counts that were excused because of a deadlocked jury.

McGrath suffered a heart attack on March 15, 1999 after taking an oral sedative, chloral hydrate, in preparation for a tooth extraction in Ford’s Pasadena office. Prosecutors alleged McGrath was clinically dead for 28 minutes before paramedics could resuscitate her. She now relies on a walker to get around and is learning to read and write again.

After the not-guilty verdict was read, Ford spoke to reporters outside the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse. “I am just so happy, totally happy…I would never have been able to make it through this if not for my friends, family and my faith in God,” said Ford. “The big thing I want to make clear is that my prayers go out to Melissa McGrath’s family.”

During the four-month trial, presided over by Judge Lance Ito, prosecutors called dozens of parents, experts and Ford’s dental assistants to the witness stand in an attempt to show that Ford was greedy. Witnesses stated that children were “stacked up like cardboard” waiting for care, and most of them left in a rag-doll state.

Defense experts testified that it was not uncommon for children to be sleepy after dental work.

A key witness in the case, Ford’s assistant Dana Harmon, told investigators in October 1999 that she gave McGrath the allowable dosage of the sedative. At the time, the county district attorney rejected the case in part because of that statement. Then in December 1999, Harmon told investigators she lied and actually gave McGrath six times the recommended dose. By then Harmon had filed a workers’ compensation claim against Ford for job-related stress.

McGrath’s mother, Jan McGrath, was also a key witness whose character came under scrutiny. Mrs. McGrath told investigators her daughter received two half cups of chloral hydrate. But her word was viewed suspiciously because, in a separate case, prosecutors charged Mrs. McGrath with perjury for lying to receive welfare benefits.

Ford’s license has been suspended pending the outcome of the trial including the possible retrial of the three counts unresolved in this case.