LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California doctor was arrested Tuesday on charges of doling out drugs to patients he didn't examine and is alleged to have prescribed drugs to five people who died of overdoses, and an impaired driver who struck and killed a bicyclist, federal prosecutors said.
Dr. Dzung Ahn Pham, 57, was arrested on charges of illegally distributing opioids and other narcotics to what authorities called "patients," many of whom he never examined at his Irvine urgent care clinic. He prescribed some drugs after receiving text messages requesting specific quantities and doses, prosecutors said.
"This case clearly and tragically illustrates the dangers of drug dealers armed with prescription pads," said U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna.
Pham's record of prescribing large amounts of pills led a CVS pharmacy to stop accepting prescriptions from him more than five years ago, prosecutors said.
A phone call and email seeking comment from Pham's lawyer, John Barton, were not immediately returned.
Pham wrote prescriptions for five people he never examined who died from overdoses between 2014 and 2017, prosecutors said. He's not charged in those deaths, but those investigations are ongoing, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney.
In November, a driver who fatally struck an off-duty firefighter training on his bike for a triathlon told investigators he was on drugs prescribed by Pham, prosecutors said. Several prescription bottles with Pham's name were found in the driver's car.
Orange County prosecutors have charged Stephen Scarpa, 25, with murder in the death of Costa Mesa fire Capt. Mike Kreza.
An affidavit filed with the charges described many of Pham's text messages, indicating in one case that he was having a sexual relationship with a patient. He was prescribing drugs to that woman and also to her 9-year-old daughter, according to the document by Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Lindsey Bellomy.
In another text exchange, Pham told someone he was concerned after learning that the gunman who killed 11 and wounded a responding officer who died from a fellow officer's bullet during a shootout at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks last month had prescriptions Pham wrote for someone else.
The document does not provide any information on whether Ian Long, the shooter who took his own life after the Nov. 7 mass shooting, possessed any prescriptions written by Pham.
"I never saw Mr. Long before so I don't know the implication of this information," Pham wrote in the text message exchange, according to the affidavit.
The person Pham was texting responded by trying to reassure Pham he was in the clear if the prescriptions were not written to Long.
"If I give my meds to some crazy person its (sic) on me, not you, you have no control over what happened after a patient leaves your office," the person replied.
The criminal complaint said Pham charged $100 to $150 a visit at his clinic and deposited $6.7 million into bank accounts between 2013 and September.
