Wichita ? Gina Schneider, 14, had just one question as she and her sister sped away from a prison after federal marshals refused to let the two see their father: “How can they sleep at night after doing that?”

Gina and her 15-year-old sister, Zoyie, and other relatives went to the Bulter County jail Wednesday night to visit Dr. Stephen Schneider, who is accused of running a “pill mill” at a clinic in Haysville. But federal marshals wouldn’t allow the visit.

“I can’t believe they can do this. I just got done crying from jail,” Zoyie Schneider said in a tearful interview as the family drove home. “We were going to surprise him.”

Wednesday was supposed to be Stephen Schneider’s night for visitors. His wife, Linda, also will not be allowed to have visitors, federal officials said.

The Schneiders face a 34-count federal indictment charging them with conspiracy, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, health care fraud, illegal monetary transactions and money laundering. They have pleaded not guilty.

The Schneiders are not charged with killing any patients. But federal prosecutors have linked them to the overdose deaths of 56 patients who obtained pain killers at the clinic. The indictment alleges they are directly responsible for four of those deaths.

Prison officials on Wednesday cut off the couple’s phone privileges when Linda Schneider tried to call the Haysville clinic where their patients were gathering signatures on a petition amid growing media attention on their case.

Treatment not different

Logan Kline, spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said the Schneiders are not being treated any differently than any other federal prisoner. Prisoners are handled by the U.S. Marshals Service, not the U.S. attorney’s office.

“Privileges were revoked that they had due to some phone calls that they made that were inappropriate,” Kline said, declining to elaborate further.

At the U.S. attorney’s office, spokesman Jim Cross declined to confirm or deny that the Schneiders are having trouble communicating with reporters or family members. He also refused to talk about his office’s role, if any, in their treatment.

“I don’t know of any time in the past that the U.S. attorney’s office has commented on such matters. And I think it would not be appropriate to do so in this case,” Cross said.

Family members and patients at the Haysville clinic are gathering signatures on a petition to keep the clinic open prior to a hearing Tuesday on a petition by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts to suspend Schneider’s medical license.

Finding allies

The New Mexico-based Pain Relief Network has joined the couple’s cause. Its president, Siobhan Reynolds, said it will file a federal civil lawsuit next week alleging the Controlled Substances Act, as applied to doctors and patients, is unconstitutional.

The group contends that the government’s prosecution of the Schneiders is part of a federal crackdown against doctors who prescribe pain medication. It claims the prosecution hurts patients because it makes doctors afraid to treat them.

Schneider’s clinic, which has about 1,000 patients, has remained open since the couple’s arrest last month. Physician assistants are allowed to continue to prescribe medication as long as the clinic is owned by a licensed doctor, Reynolds said.

The couple had been able to visit family members until Wednesday – the day Linda Schneider made an attempt, apparently blocked by jailers, to call the clinic to talk to a television reporter who had come to cover the petition drive, Reynolds said.

At earlier visits, the parents had tried to reassure their girls.

But the recent development has spooked family members, who fear the government is retaliating against the Schneiders for the media attention to their case.

“They are holding them incommunicado,” Reynolds said. “This really is Guantanamo in Kansas.”