Two doctors, their clinic manager, and the pharmacist next door, all Vietnamese, were arrested in Biloxi, Mississippi on May 21 on accusations that they illegally wrote and filled prescriptions for controlled narcotics, resulting in at least nine alleged fatal overdoses.
Under arrest are Family Medical Center’s Dr. Thomas Trieu (pictured), his wife Dr. Victoria Van, his brother Richard Trieu the manager, and Nick Tran the pharmacist neighbor.
Local television station WLOX claims to have worked on this story for more than a year, after “tips came into the WLOX Action line from worried parents who said their adult children were hooked on drugs. They believed the clinic and pharmacy on Division Street was their supplier.”
The four face a 22-count indictment of illegal dispensing narcotics. WLOX-TV quoted Joel Reece, the lead DEA agent on the case as saying, “They are charged with federal violations of Title 21 for dispensing Schedule 3, 4 and 5 narcotics.”
Local police was also involved. Biloxi’s Assistant Chief of Police Rodney McGilvary told WLOX, “We received a lot of complaints from citizens of Biloxi, and up and down the coast, about the situation here. This is far reaching, involving millions and millions of dollars.”
The indictment alleged the doctors, without or with very little examination or testing of the patients, wrote prescriptions for pain killers like codeine, Xanax, Lortab and other drugs. The patients went next door to fill, according to WLOX.
While the doctors were arrested, some of their patients/customers still showed up, so cops searched them too. 
As told by WLOX, “as agents were searching the clinic and pharmacy, seizing drugs, documents and other items, police stopped more than a dozen suspected customers of the drug ring who drove up. Police used drug dogs to search the cars and ended up arresting a handful of them after finding drugs in the cars or discovering outstanding warrants.”
Manager Richard Trieu is also accused of stealing from the clinic. He was charged with more counts than the doctors, wrote the Gulfport Sun Herald here. DEA agent Terry Davis, who infiltrated the clinic as an undercover patient, testified at the bond hearing that “Trieu took cash from the clinic’s daily receipts and accused employees of stealing the missing money.”
According to Davis, Richard Trieu “earned about $85,000 a year, yet is building a $2 million home in Beau Chene Estates in Biloxi and has far more assets than his income could provide.”
Facing the least charges is Victoria Van, the wife doctor. Her attorney said her only two drug charges involve prescriptions she wrote for a patient who had run out of medicine originally prescribed by her husband.
Other than the narcotics problem, however, the doctors seem to be dedicated physicians, going the extra mile to take care of their patients. WLOX in a follow-up story quoted patient Ann Nguyen as saying, “Dr. Trieu is a very good doctor. He took care of my mom and my son. Even in the middle of the night he stayed for us. Please let him out, because he is a very good doctor to our family and to everybody.”
Another patient said, “I’m low income, no insurance. He still helped me. He took such good care of me, I didn’t have to go to the hospital and pay a lot of money.”
The defendants are all denied bond. If convicted, the manager Richard Trieu faces up to 62 years in prison. Dr. Thomas Trieu and pharmacist Nick Tran each faces up to 54 years, and Dr. Victoria Van faces up to 13 years, according to the Sun Herald.
Any relations to VAN TRAN and his clans over here? Wasn’t his wife arrested for the same thing? If I remember correctly, she was charged with 9 counts of felony at the time!!!
Ahhh, my peeps are all grown up. Now Vietnamese-Americans just have to move on to money laundering and other RICO related crimes.
BillyHoyle enjoys this blog, nice work.
Why! Why! I can not believe these “educated” people are that stupid. They are probably just being greedy!
Victoria Van is innocent. She is one of the most kind and compassionate doctors I know. She is married the wrong guy who did illegal activities. I firmly believe that she probably tried to stop these immoral activities to no avail.
I’m writing on behalf of Dr. Van. Please send your support to her. She doesn’t deserve to be put in this predicament. She saw real patients in need of medical treatment, while her husband saw junkies. She cannot be punished for her husband’s crime.
Dear Thuy Van Dinh and Betty Logan:
Please email me: bolsavik at gmail.com. Thanks.
what do you think if you know Dr. Van charge 300.00 for a pap smear.
Does she ever wonder where all the money her husband got? Sure she is very innocent, you are so naive. God bless you all.
Fuck you people, the doctors and pharmicist are innocent. Teh governemtn is corrupted. I just heard, they are estendign the trial to next Feb. because they can’t find anythign guilty on Nick Tran. That just shows they are inocent, and the governemtn is corrupted, and ashamed to admit they were fucking wrong
Those people are innocent. The government will be paying dearly for their screw up. Racist bastards.
Papmear can be charged from 40 to 300 dollars. It’s up to the procedure you want to have . Papsmearcan be read by electronic or by doctors . If patient wants to have to rule out STD such as Gonorrhea (benh lau), Chlamydia, or HPV carrier . Those money they have to pay to the Lab, not to Dr Van, she is only the person to get specimen for the Lab .
i am of no relation nor do i know them outside their office. i am a former patient of both trieu and van. i am also a recovering addict. i began seeing trieu in 2002 and remained a patient until 2007 when i sought treatment for drug addiction. dr. trieu started out with good intentions. after katrina he built his new office and that’s when the corruption began. i believe he just became greedy. it was easy money. i don’t dislike him but he did feed junkies their fix and he knew he was doing it. it was blatantly obvious to everyone that came close to that office.
dr. van really was a good doctor. i’m not saying that she wasn’t aware of what was going on because everyone knew. but she actually took time with patients and would try to lower the dosage of medicine that her husband had previously prescribed. i believe she should receive a much shorter sentence if anything at all.
i was also close to one of the overdosed patients. he was a regular patient and began seeing dr trieu around the time i did. he died in 2005. i’m not sure how i feel about dr. trieu being charged in my friend’s death. i believe he should receive some sort of punishment because of the many lives that were destroyed partly because of his carelessness. on the other hand, all of us addicts, including those who died, visited him monthly for years and were very well aware of the reprecussions of our actions. i do think that doctors should be held in higher esteem because it is their job to ultimately look out for their patients well-being…addict or not. i think dr. trieu failed to live up to these expectations and should be punished accordingly.
i do wish them all the best and i can only hope they’ve learned from their mistakes, they are good people who made bad choices.
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