Pill mill doc gets 25-year prison term

Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2010

A former San Fernando physician convicted of improperly prescribing powerful painkillers to drug addicts and undercover drug agents was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay a $1-million fine. The sentence was justified by the scope of Masoud Bamdad's "pill mill," the seriousness of his illicit prescribing and his apparent lack of remorse, U.S. District Court Judge George Wu told the court. Wu cited the prosecution's report that for three years running — including 2008, the year of his arrest —Bamdad ranked among the state's highest prescribers of oxycodone, a powerful narcotic popularly known as "synthetic heroin." The volume of his prescriptions exceeded that of many hospitals and pain management clinics, Wu said. "The offense that was involved here is extremely serious," Wu said. "The amount of drug distributed sort of boggles the mind. And it was not victimless."