Nose doctor's patients settle lawsuits for $55M

INDIANAPOLIS -- Nearly 300 ex-patients of a former nose doctor convicted of fraud after five years of international flight will receive a share of a $55 million medical-malpractice settlement approved by an Indiana judge, attorneys said. The settlement involves 282 former patients who sued Merrillville physician Mark Weinberger, claiming the surgeon subjected them to unnecessary or fake surgeries. Weinberger, who billed himself as "the Nose Doc," was arrested in 2009 on a snowy Italian mountainside, where he was living in a tent. The patients began filing the lawsuits in 2004 when Weinberger went missing while vacationing with his family in Greece.