Case Filed Following Overdose Demise of Man in Virginia Final Yr
WASHINGTON – Dr. Robert M. Cao, 39, of Lafayette, Louisiana, and beforehand of Falls Church, Virginia, was sentenced yesterday within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Columbia to fifteen months in jail for 5 felony counts of illegal distribution of a managed substance exterior the scope of his skilled observe. Cao pleaded responsible on November 8, 2022 to prescribing varied narcotic ache medicines within the months and days main as much as an overdose dying in Virginia.
The sentence was introduced by U.S. Lawyer Matthew M. Graves, Particular Agent in Cost Wayne A. Jacobs of the FBI’s Washington Subject Workplace Prison and Cyber Division, and Chief Kevin Davis, of the Fairfax County, Virginia Police Division.
Along with the jail time period, U.S. District Courtroom Decide Tanya S. Chutkan ordered 36 months of supervised launch, 100 hours of neighborhood service, and ordered that he not maintain a job that may give him entry to managed substances.
Based on court docket paperwork, Cao was licensed to observe medication within the District of Columbia and Virginia. On not less than 5 events in 2021, he knowingly and deliberately wrote prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone for a person recognized as “V.C.” These Schedule II managed substances have a excessive potential for abuse. Cao supplied the narcotic prescriptions to the sufferer with out having any doctor-patient relationship with him, with none bodily examination, prognosis, or remedy plan, and realizing that the sufferer had no medical situation that may necessitate such prescriptions.
On Could 31, 2021, first responders had been dispatched to a Fairfax, Virginia residence in response to a 911 name for help relating to “V.C.,” after his girlfriend discovered him chilly and non-responsive. He was pronounced deceased underneath suspicious circumstances.
A subsequent post-mortem report documented the reason for dying as acute mixed oxycodone and ethanol poisoning. On the nightstand subsequent to the place “V.C.” was discovered had been prescription bottles, together with one containing Percocet (a model title of the narcotic analgesic oxycodone/acetaminophen) tablets stuffed on Could 23, 2021. Cao was the prescribing physician listed on the bottle.
Courtroom filings additionally element textual content message exchanges between Cao and “V.C.,” together with discussions about Cao prescribing narcotic ache medicines to “V.C.” in trade for agreeing to present Cao a kickback of among the tablets he had prescribed, and conferences between the 2, together with a gathering in a parking zone on the evening earlier than the person’s dying so Cao may get a portion of the narcotic tablets from “V.C.”
“It’s outrageous that somebody who had an obligation to ‘do no hurt’ would flip round and prescribe a medically pointless, harmful drug,” stated U.S. Lawyer Graves. “Individuals in our nation are dying by the 1000’s from drug overdoses. The defendant was higher positioned than most individuals to know the potential penalties of unlawful distribution, but he however determined to unlawfully prescribe a drug, whatever the life-threatening penalties.”
“Medical professionals take an oath to do no hurt to their sufferers and public, however on this case, Robert Cao wrote pointless prescriptions for extremely addictive narcotics,” stated Particular Agent in Cost Wayne A. Jacobs, of the FBI Washington Subject Workplace’s Prison and Cyber Division. “As demonstrated by this investigation, the dangers offered by opioid diversion exterior of correct scientific observe are such that even a number of illicit prescriptions can show deadly. Together with our companions, we are going to proceed our mission of bringing those that disregard affected person security and well-being by working such felony schemes to justice.”
As detailed in court docket paperwork, Cao took a number of steps to keep away from detection from regulation enforcement and regulatory authorities. For instance, he suggested the sufferer to not create a paper path, and to fill the prescriptions at instances after they had been least prone to be questioned by pharmacies. Cao additionally hid the pad that he used to put in writing the person prescriptions, which Cao took from a District of Columbia beauty workplace the place he beforehand labored, at his house inside a hollowed-out container made to appear like a diary.
After studying of the sufferer’s premature dying, Cao created fraudulent backdated medical information to make it seem that Cao had supplied reputable prescriptions to the sufferer as a part of a lawful doctor-patient relationship.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Subject Workplace and the Fairfax County Police Division.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anne P. McNamara and Christine Macey of the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia.
