A Vietnamese-American doctor from Georgia has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for illegally dispensing prescription drugs, reports the AP in a story reprinted here. (This case is not related to the more publicized Biloxi case.)
Hung Thien Ly, M.D., 50, a general practitioner from Pooler, near Savannah, was also fined $200,000 and must also pay a special assessment of $12,900.
Back in August of last year, Ly was convicted on 129 counts of dispensing drugs illegally, according to the US DOJ’s press release here.
Ly supposedly willy-nilly prescribed and even supplied hundreds of generic Lorcet (10mg version pictured), a pain killer containing narcotic and generic Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug. Both are controlled substances.
Evidence at the 3 1/2 day trial apparently established Ly would perform only perfunctory examination of his patients and then would write “back pain” and “anxiety” on the patients’ chart to justify writing the prescriptions.
He wrote so many of these strange prescriptions that in 2003 and early 2004, local pharmacists began refusing to fill his prescriptions.
No problem. Ly contacted pharmaceutical distributors directly. He got the drugs from the distributors, and then himself sold them straight to his patients.
Ly made no appointments, accepted only cash, and would not provide any receipts. A safe in his house contained $180,000 in cash.
The cash is probably gone by now. The DOJ’s press release mentions forfeiture proceedings, which should be completed already.
