Doctor gets 30 years to life for prescription drug deaths

The only doctor to ever be convicted of murder for recklessly prescribing drugs in the United States was sentenced today to 30 years to life in prison.

Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng was convicted of murder for prescribing exorbitant amounts of painkillers that left at least three patients dead and has been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

“I’m really terribly sorry, ‘ she told the courtroom audience which was crowded with victims” relatives.

Tseng’s attorney accused investigators of a “rush to judgment” and of singling Tseng out while failing to interview other doctors who may have treated the patients, who she said took “far in excess” of the dosages prescribed by Tseng. April Rovero, whose 19-year-old son Joey was one of the victims, founded the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse after her son’s death in 2009.

A Rowland Heights doctor was convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of three patients by overdose on prescription drugs.

“I was not the doctor I should have been for the patients who came to me”, she wrote. “She froze time for us that day”.

The judge said there seemed to be an effort by Tseng, 46, to “put the blame on someone else”, including her patients, other doctors and pharmacists who filled the prescriptions. She earned $5 million in one three-year-period and used the funds to build a new medical clinic. Tseng’s lawyers asked that she be placed in Chino for the remainder of her sentence so that she can remain close to her mother and children. In October, after 10 days of deliberations, a jury found Tseng guilty of three counts of second-degree murder in the overdose deaths of three patients.

She catered to young patients who traveled long distances and paid cash for their prescriptions.

She was not charged in the deaths of nine other patients because of other factors involved in those deaths, such as drugs prescribed by other doctors and a possible suicide. The prosecutor said that Tseng made up medical records and called her patients “druggies” at her Rowland Heights, California based practice in Los Angeles County.

Before sentencing, Green told Lomeli that Tseng bore some – but not all – responsibility for the misery that flowed from her prescription pad.

Criminally prosecuting physicians for patients’ deaths is relatively rare, with one notable case being the 2011 involuntary manslaughter conviction of Dr. Conrad Murray for giving pop star Michael Jackson a fatal dose of a surgical anesthetic to help him sleep.

Tseng also ignored pleas from family members of patients who demanded she stop prescribing them drugs, prosecutors said.

“It may be an opportunity to pause and reflect for a moment and think rationally about appropriate care for a patient”, Driver said. Tseng’s patients often hid addictions to painkillers and Tseng thought she was helping ease their pain, Green said.

Dr. Francis Riegler, a pain specialist who works in Palmdale, Calif., said he has followed Tseng’s case and talked about the prosecution with fellow doctors across the country.

Ogle’s mother, Desiree Ogle, said her son died eight hours after getting a methadone prescription from Tseng.