The doctor is accused of being involved in an OxyContin ring with members of the Pagans motorcycle gang.
Prosecutors have released police bodycam footage of the contentious arrest of a New Jersey doctor in June following a standoff with police.
In the tense video from the June confrontation, cops who were investigating medical fraud at the time show up at Dr. James Kauffman’s office in Egg Harbor Township with a search warrant.
When the doctor opens the front door and a detective steps inside, the situation suddenly explodes.
The doctor threatened suicide with what cops say was a 9mm pistol he had on him. He claims on the video that he has a license for the gun. Police drew their guns and backed off, waiting for Dr. Kauffman’s next move.
Police can be heard telling the doctor to drop the gun and talk through the situation with them.
The doctor again says he is going to kill himself and the cops continued to talk him down. At one point, the cops throw the search warrant for the doctor to look at. After Kauffman grabbed the papers, an FBI agent pleaded with the doctor and discussed the warrant.
The doctor said he did not want to go to jail, but after 40 minutes, he finally threw in the towel.
Dr. Kauffman, 69, was arrested that June day on weapons offenses, but that wasn't the end of his trouble with police. He pleaded not guilty in September 2017 to weapons and obstruction charges.
Earlier this month, he was charged with murder and racketeering in what prosecutors described as a murder-for-hire hit on his wife, April Kauffman, who was shot to death in the couple’s home in 2012.
April Kauffman was a local radio talk show host. She was shot dead by an intruder in her home in Linwood, N.J., in May 2012.
As the years went by and the case turned cold, the slain woman's daughter, Kimberly Pack, had suspicions about her stepfather, the doctor.
“It feels like I’m living some kind of weird made-for-TV movie," Kimberly told Inside Edition. "It just doesn't seem real, it doesn't seem right."
Authorities now believe the doctor hired a hit man to kill his wife because she was threatening to expose his alleged involvement in an illegal opioid-distribution ring they say he ran out of his medical office with members of the notorious Pagan's Motorcycle Club.
This president of a local chapter of The Pagans, Ferdinand “Freddy” Augello, was also charged in the murder case. He claims he is innocent.
"Jim Kauffman was a busy man with all of his crimes," prosecutor Damon Tyner told Inside Edition. "He was sort of like a one-man crime spree."
Kauffman has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife and denies being involved with drug trafficking.
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