Radio-show host April Kauffman was murdered in her Linwood home in May 2012 against a backdrop of deceit, drugs and marital discord. Her husband, Dr. James Kauffman, an endocrinologist, was charged with ordering his wife’s execution, but killed himself in prison before his trial could start.
Veteran crime reporter George Anastasia was fascinated by the case. In Doctor Dealer, Anastasia and cowriter Ralph Cipriano recount the murder and share new insights from in-depth interviews with Carole Weintraub, who married James Kauffman in 2013, and Andrew Glick, a member of the Pagans motorcycle gang. The book, out in September from Berkley, also features the first publication of the doctor’s suicide note.
“We’re telling a story from two different perspectives—from the viewpoint of the third wife and a biker,” says Anastasia, a Pitman resident.
Weintraub and Kauffman were high school sweethearts who reconnected after April’s death. “She was looking at him through the prism of high school,” says Anastasia. “After a couple of years, she realized he was not the guy she dated in high school.”
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Indeed, Kauffman, who falsely claimed to have been a Green Beret in Vietnam, ran an illegal oxycodone-distribution network with the Pagans and participated in insurance-fraud schemes involving prescriptions for pain medications. When April pressed for a divorce, Kauffman enlisted Ferdinand Augello of the Pagans to arrange a hit. Augello was convicted of first-degree murder in 2018.
Glick, a key witness in the murder trial, provides an insider’s view of the Pagans and their oxycodone ring. He wasn’t the stereotypical biker. “Glick was a chef in a senior-citizens complex, making good money,” Anastasia says.
Kauffman’s rambling suicide note finds him trying to get the last word. “He signed his name as an M.D. and he was a D.O.,” says Anastasia. “Even in the end, he was still manipulative.”