SoCal Doc Nailed as Drug Dealer

LOS ANGELES (CN) - A 72-year-old West Hollywood doctor pleaded guilty Monday to writing prescriptions for narcotics after his authority to prescribe drugs was revoked, federal prosecutors said.

James William Eisenberg pleaded guilty to one count of distributing hydrocodone aka Vicodin and Norco, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Eisenberg wrote the prescriptions while working in several West Hollywood offices, prosecutors said, including Pacific Support Services, on Santa Monica Boulevard. He also wrote medical marijuana prescriptions though he was prohibited from doing so under conditions of his release on bond, the U.S. attorney said in the statement.

The DEA suspended Eisenberg's power to prescribe controlled drugs on July 24, 2012, prosecutors said. He was working at a medical marijuana joint in Arizona at the time. The DEA administrative judge found that Eisenberg "'lacked a legitimate medical purpose and acted outside of the usual course of professional practice' when he wrote prescriptions for oxycodone (the generic form of a drug often best known as the brand name OxyContin) and Xanax in exchange for $150 cash payments. The DEA judge also found that Eisenberg wrote 'medical marijuana' recommendations to undercover officers posing as patients, and that Eisenberg prescribed OxyContin to one of the undercover agents 'before [Eisenberg] had even performed a physical examination,'" the U.S. attorney said in the statement.

Yet after his registration was revoked, his patients "filled more than 1,700 of his prescriptions for controlled substances, including more than 1,200 prescriptions for hydrocodone," according to the U.S. attorney.

Eisenberg faces up to 10 years in federal prison at his Dec. 9 sentencing.

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