A Tustin physician whose prescriptions have been linked to a driver who killed an off-duty Costa Mesa fireplace captain and the suspected gunman within the mass taking pictures on the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks pleaded responsible Friday, Oct. 7 to conspiracy to distribute managed substances after being accused of illegally prescribing greater than 120,000 opioid tablets over a six-year span.
Dr. Dzung Ahn Pham, who owned Irvine Village Pressing Care, distributed the tablets and not using a respectable medical objective in alternate for money and insurance coverage funds, in response to his plea settlement.
He faces as much as 20 years in federal jail when he's sentenced on Jan. 6, 2023.
From Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 17, 2018, Pham wrote prescriptions for round 53,000 Oxycodone tablets, 68,000 hydrocodone tablets and 29,000 tablets of amphetamine salts utilizing 18 totally different affected person names, his plea settlement states.
Pham conspired with Jennifer Thaoyen Nguyen, 51, a licensed pharmacist who operated Bristol Pharmacy in Irvine, and who additionally has agreed to enter a responsible plea for a similar felony cost later this month, courtroom information present.
Pham directed his sufferers to Nguyen’s pharmacy to fill his prescriptions as a result of he knew different pharmacies wouldn't, in response to courtroom paperwork.
Nguyen accepted funds from Pham’s sufferers and gave Pham the funds, her plea settlement states.
In November 2018, Stephen Taylor Scarpa caught and killed veteran Costa Mesa fireplace captain Mike Kreza whereas Kreza was biking on Alicia Parkway in Mission Viejo. On the time of the crash, prosecutors alleged Scarpa had narcotics prescribed by Pham in his system. Scarpa was convicted of second-degree homicide final yr.
In December 2018, federal prosecutors alleged that medicines prescribed by Pham have been discovered within the possession of Ian David Lengthy, the suspected gunman who carried out the Borderline Bar & Grill taking pictures in Thousand Oaks that left 13 folks lifeless.
Pham was not charged in reference to Kreza’s loss of life, the Borderline shootings or any alleged overdose deaths linked to the prescriptions.