Arrest of Orange County doctor linked to Borderline Shooting investigation
DEA agents arrested an Orange County Doctor on federal allegations Tuesday and there may be a link to the Borderline shooting investigation.
Dzung Ahn Pham is accused of knowingly prescribing medication to addicts, leading to at least five overdose deaths.
The 57-year-old Tustin doctor may have also indirectly supplied drugs to the gunman responsible for the Borderline Massacre in Thousand Oaks last month, according to a Justice Department report.
Pham was arrested on two counts of illegally distributing oxycodone. He owns Irvine Village Urgent Care.
An affidavit filed with the charges says he wrote prescriptions for five people he never examined who died from overdoses.
The Justice Department claims Pham was selling large amounts of prescription drugs to patients he knew were addicts without examining them. Federal authorities believe he was aware they would also turn around and sell the drugs on the black market.
Between 2014 and 2017, at least five people who filled prescriptions from Pham have died, according to a criminal complaint.
Following the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill, in which 28-year-old Ian David Long opened fire in the crowded bar, killing 12 people, Pham sent a text message in which he “expressed concern” that Long may have been in possession of drugs which Pham had prescribed to someone else.
“One of my patient (sic) just told me that the thousand oak shooter, Ian David Long, had my prescription bottles that belong to some (sic) else,” Pham wrote in a text obtained by DEA investigators. “I never saw Mr. Long before, so I don’t (sic) know the implication of this information.”
An email message seeking comment to Pham’s attorney was not immediately returned.
The DEA has been investigating Pham since 2015 and conducted two undercover operations on him this past summer.
If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison. The DEA and Irvine police continue to investigate.
