West Hollywood Doctor Indicted For Drug Trafficking, Charged With 'Dealing' Prescriptions For $150 Payments
A doctor in West Hollywood has surrendered to authorities after being indicted on Friday for allegedly writing more than a thousand prescriptions for addictive painkillers after the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) revoked his license last year, according to the United States Attorney's Office.
Dr. James Eisenberg, 72, is being charged with three counts of illegally distributing hydrocodone and four counts of using a revoked DEA registration number when writing these illegal prescriptions. He is expected to be arraigned on Monday.
In 2012, Department of Justice (DOJ) Judge Timothy Wing stripped Eisenberg's license to prescribe controlled medications after concluding that the doctor had acted like a "drug dealer" by illegally prescribing pain medications like Oxycontin without medical necessity and in exchange for $150 cash payments from his "patients," two of which included undercover DEA agents.
After losing his license, Eisenberg continued to hand out prescriptions for payments - approximately 1,200 of them - and also illegally issued medical marijuana recommendations, the U.S. Attorney's Office alleges.
According to court papers Eisenberg conducted these "drug deals" out of several West Hollywood medical offices, a change in venue from his earlier 2011-2012 negotiations that caused the DOJ to strip his license, which took place in Arizona.
According to the affidavit from the U.S. Attorney's Office, when a pharmacist in West Hollywood refused to fill a prescription from Eisenberg for hydrocodone and Xanax in June 2012, Eisenberg is alleged to have called up the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist to make an "exception," the Los Angeles Times reports.
If convicted of all seven counts listed in the indictment, Eisenberg faces a maximum sentence of 46 years in federal prison.