With his case pending, Goroway cannot discuss his arrest or any of the events that led up to it. He'll say only that "the truth will come out" at trial, which has been set for mid-August. Given that his friend and former colleague Boulis had dabbled with drugs, it's reasonable to wonder whether Goroway also had shady dealings away from his practice. But he denies it, insisting he doesn't even drink, much less do drugs. "I don't lead a double life," he stresses.
Other friends and colleagues offer no explanation. "I've been out with him as a friend to dinners and concerts, and there was no sign of this kind of thing," says Dr. Leonard Badalamente, Goroway's former partner in a Deerfield Beach clinic. "I think he was recently divorced, a business went down, and maybe he met the wrong kind of people."
A few years after he graduated, Goroway was already closing in on his first million.
Markell Boulis is a cautionary tale about the dangers of chiropractors' dabbling in drugs.
Related Content
More About
The arrest was, to Goldstein, "a complete shock to everyone who knew [Goroway] personally and professionally."
When the subject changes to his career as a chiropractor, Goroway leans back in his chair and rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Did I want to make millions?" he asks, then pauses. "Yes," he says finally. "But money is not a driver for me." He adds, "I'm a great idea person, and I want to help people."
As he describes his career, it's hard not to see flashes of the persuasive pitchman he once was. "I taught principles," he exclaims. "How to get paid by running sound systems of health care. Nobody had done that before!" Goroway talks about giving free clinical care to a local football team and teaching life-saving courses to firefighters. Handsome, animated, and affable, Goroway adds just enough self-deprecating humor to keep from appearing slick.
Strangely, the former millionaire, who sounded positively disconsolate during his 2005 deposition, sounds hopeful on this day, despite the prospect of a lengthy stay in prison. "I could have been dead," he explains. "I could have been paralyzed. I'm very, very thankful to be alive, very sound in the fact that things will work out from this incident, however it comes about. I was very, very distraught from a lot of losses in 2003 — and this incident, as terrible as it is, gave me a new perspective on life. I'm actually happy, as bizarre as that may sound."
In fact, Goroway says he still dreams of giving acting a whirl. His role as a seminar leader at Practice Mechanix was something of a performance: "I enjoy public speaking, the platform, being able to move audiences emotionally and spiritually."
But his true ambition at this point is much more humble, and it's one he sets out in a melancholy tone, with a chastened expression on his face. "I'd prefer to practice where I can put a box on the wall and tell people to drop a few bucks in it, whatever they can afford," he says earnestly. "I would work three days a week and the other four, just surf and fish."
