The prescription forgery trial of a Tallulah physician accused of writing prescriptions to feed his live-in girlfriend’s drug habit has been delayed until mid-October following testimony from his personal doctor that he is not physically able to stand trial this month.
Dr. Lawrence Francis Chenier III, 61, who lives in Vicksburg and practices medicine in Tallulah, is suffering from a condition caused by elevated blood sugar, Dr. Abdul G. Bahro of Central Mississippi Medical Center said in a teleconference with attorneys and Circuit Judge M. James Chaney.
The stress of going through trial could cause Chenier to suffer a heart attack, defense attorney Marshall Sanders has said.
“The case is being continued until Oct. 13,” District Attorney Ricky Smith said.

Chenier checked himself into the Jackson hospital last Friday suffering from chest pains, prosecutors have said. He was set to go to trial Sept. 15, and Smith had hoped to move the case to Sept. 16 or this coming Monday.
Chaney has granted a prosecution request for Chenier’s medical records from his hospital stay after Smith argued that the hospitalization was a ruse to avoid trial.
Smith has said that before narcotics agents raided his home in 2011 Chenier wrote prescriptions for 13,000 pills of painkillers that were picked up by his live-in girlfriend, 43-year-old Pattie Carr a Vicksburg drug store near the home they share at 100 Colonial Drive.
Among the names on the prescription bottles were 21 people Carr admitted to fabricating.
More than 300 empty pill bottles were found inside a bedroom closet at the couple’s home.
Carr, who is represented by John Bullard, pleaded guilty in June to five counts of prescription forgery. During a sentencing hearing in September, Carr said Chenier did not know she was abusing painkillers. Though she is off drugs, she testified at the hearing, she is still living with Chenier.
Chaney has not yet announced a sentence in Carr’s guilty plea.