08:25 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 16, 2006

By Harvey Rice / Houston Chronicle

A federal judge revoked bail Monday for a Houston physician who, while under indictment here on fraud charges, was accused of flying to Florida and torching his wife’s $3.2 million house.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner revoked Dr. Ira Klein’s $50,000 bail after defense attorneys tried to persuade the judge that Klein needs psychiatric treatment that would be better given outside of jail.  Hittner noted that Klein’s attorneys did not allow him to testify.  The ruling will make it more difficult to prepare for Klein’s Aug. 1 trial on 46 counts of insurance fraud, said defense attorney John “Casey” Keirnan.

“It’s a very complicated case and it’s difficult to prepare while the person is in the federal detention center, where he doesn’t have access to computers and phones,” Keirnan said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Louis told Hittner that Klein is a flight risk because he has access to large amounts of money in accounts that the government has not yet frozen.

Hittner was not persuaded by testimony from psychiatrist Dr. Harvey Rosenstock, who said Klein has manic depression and his condition could worsen if he remains in jail. It was that condition, Rosentock said, that led to the March incident in which police say the doctor flew to Florida and set his wife’s house ablaze.

Rosenstock said the act, two weeks after Klein’s indictment by a Houston grand jury, was a suicide attempt.

Louis countered that Klein acted in anger because his wife was divorcing him. He said Klein flew to Palm Beach, hired a locksmith to open the house he had bought and signed over to his wife, bought cans of lighter fluid and tossed his wife’s belongings into a pool.  “That’s an angry individual, not somebody who is depressed,” Louis said.

Klein, who surrendered his medical license last year, was indicted Feb.  27 on accusations that he had charged insurance companies for $10 million in services he never performed.

He was pulled from his wife’s blazing home March 9 by a security guard, saying, “Please, just shoot me” and “I just want to die,” according to police.

Klein faces an arson charge in Palm Beach County, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if he is convicted.

If convicted on the federal charges, he faces a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of 20 mail‑fraud counts and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of 26 health‑fraud counts.