By MURRAY WEISS, LARRY CELONA and LUKAS I. ALPERT
Last updated: 7:00 pm
December 3, 2008
Posted: 1:50 am
December 3, 2008
The doctor who helped treat Giants star Plaxico Burress' self-inflicted gunshot wound was mysteriously summoned to the hospital in the middle of the night - and has been suspended for failing to alert police and signing off on medical papers identifying him by a phony name, sources said yesterday.
Dr. Josyann Abisaab, 44, does not work directly for New York-Cornell Hospital but is affiliated with the facility.
She apparently arrived at the hospital at 2 a.m. to treat him, but it's not clear why she was called.
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She also does not have any affiliation with the team, Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon said.
"She is not...we have no relationship with her... we do not know her," Hanlon said Wednesday.
Not long after Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg at the Latin Quarter nightclub, investigators say, she was called at home and asked to come to the hospital to meet him there.
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Investigators are not sure who made the mysterious call. But the Giants vice president of medical services, Ronnie Barnes, told detectives he received a call from Burress and teammate Antonio Pierce after the shooting and he told them to go to that hospital.
Barnes, too, went to the hospital and met the players there. He did not tell investigators if he had called Abisaab.
Cops and prosecutors are now weighing whether to bring charges against anyone who was obligated under state law to alert police about Burress' gunshot wound.
"It's a priority matter to get to the bottom of how this was not reported, to find out why it wasn't reported," DA Robert Morgenthau said yesterday. "Who knew and who failed" to report it is part of the investigation, he said.
In other developments yesterday:
* The Giants placed Burress on the nonfootball injury list - ending his season without pay for "conduct detrimental to the team." He was also suspended for four games and fined an undisclosed amount.
* Police impounded Pierce's SUV - which was used to drive Burress to the hospital. Once again, Pierce did not meet with police for questioning, but his lawyer said they had been in contact with authorities.
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