A Los Angeles-area doctor was sentenced Monday to more than five years in federal prison for illegally distributing powerful opiate painkillers to addicts and laundering the proceeds of his drug dealing.
Along with a 63-month term in prison, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real sentenced Dr. Andrew Sun to three years of supervised release after he gets out of custody.
Sun, 79, of La Mirada, was found guilty of 17 felony counts, including three counts of money laundering, following a three-day trial last August.
The jury also convicted Sun of various counts of illegal distribution of hydrocodone, best known under the brand name Vicodin; alprazolam, also known as Xanax; carisoprodol, which is sold as Soma; and promethazine with codeine, known on the street as “purple drank” and “sizzurp.”
Prosecutors described Sun as a doctor who “profited by prescribing addictive painkillers and other controlled substances to persons whom he believed were drug addicts, and thus that defendant acted without a lawful medical purpose.”
Sun, who operated medical clinics in San Gabriel and East Los Angeles, issued more than 24,000 prescriptions for controlled substances and generated well over $1 million in cash proceeds from 2009 through 2012, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Authorities conducted a series of undercover operations at Sun’s clinic. During each operation, Sun failed to conduct any physical examination and sold prescriptions for $150 in cash — even when he believed he was writing prescriptions for drug addicts, according to prosecutors.
The jury heard recordings of the undercover operations in which Sun told his “patients” what symptoms they should feel in an effort to justify prescriptions for potent painkillers.
Evidence also included Medical Board disciplinary filings against Sun showing that he was subject to a separate undercover investigation in 2004, during which he prescribed Vicodin to patients even though they said they didn’t feel pain.
The Medical Board placed Sun’s license on probation status, which included a requirement that he document and report all of his prescriptions for Vicodin and other controlled drugs. Sun falsified the records that he submitted to the Medical Board by reporting diagnoses that were never mentioned during his meetings with patients, prosecutors said.
— City News Service