Doc faces 20-yr jail for selling illegal drugs

MODESTO, CA — An Indian American doctor in Modesto, Calif., was arrested at his home on April 26 on charges of illegally selling opioids to patients through his practice.

Sawtantra Kumar Chopra, 71, a pulmonary and sleep medicine specialist, was detained overnight at Fresno County Jail. He bailed out on April 27 on a $200,000 cash bond, and was ordered not to practice medicine. He faces a maximum 20-year federal prison sentence if he is found guilty on 23 counts of illegally selling opioids.

Horwood said an investigation into Chopra’s practice began last summer when two pharmacies in Sacramento called local law enforcement about possible illegal prescriptions coming from Chopra’s office. The US attorney’s office then got involved and conducted a sting operation with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Undercover agents represented themselves as patients whose doctors stopped prescribing opioids they had asked for. One of the agents received a prescription after presenting an X-ray of a healthy body part.

Chopra frequently would write a prescription without performing a medical examination. Patients travelled from as far away as San Francisco to get their drugs.

Chopra allegedly wrote prescriptions for patients who asked for hydrocodone, Xanax, and promethazine with codeine. He wrote the prescriptions regardless of whether the patient’s physical condition necessitated the drug, said Horwood.

Chopra’s next court appearance is on August 28.

According to his indictment, between March 29, 2017 and September 28, 2017, Chopra wrote illegal prescriptions for 645 hydrocodone pills, with a mean street value of about $6,500.

During that time period, Chopra allegedly wrote illegal prescriptions for 345 Xanax pills with an estimated street value of $690. He also wrote two prescriptions for promethazine with codeine, a cough syrup often used for recreational purposes.