SGV Doc Pleads Guilty to Drug, Money Laundering Charges

LOS ANGELES, CA - A San Gabriel Valley doctor who illegally distributed a powerful painkiller best known by the brand name OxyContin pleaded guilty today to federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

Dr. Daniel Cham, 48, of Covina, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 1. The charges carry a possible total maximum sentence of 40 years behind bars and a $1.5 million fine, but Cham is expected to be sentenced to a far less severe penalty.

Cham acknowledged in a plea agreement that he unlawfully prescribed oxycodone to an undercover agent posing as a patient in March 2014 in exchange for $300 in money orders, which the physician then deposited into a bank account held in the name of another business.

Cham made the deposit "knowing that the transaction was designed to conceal and disguise the nature and source of the money orders," according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Barron.

The doctor was arrested in October 2014 and charged in a 31-count federal indictment with drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud and making false statements to federal authorities.

The 29 counts not part of the plea are expected to be dismissed at sentencing before U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson.

Federal authorities served warrants at 13 locations, including Cham's home and medical offices in La Puente and Artesia.

According to prosecutors, Cham would often see patients between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, then post-date prescriptions to make it appear that he wrote them on weekdays.

He is believed to have issued more than 42,000 illegal prescriptions for drugs such as oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin or Norco), alprazolam (Xanax) and carisoprodol (Soma), prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said an undercover officer visited Cham's La Puente office three times, and Cham wrote prescriptions in exchange for $200 or $300.

Defense attorney Victor Sherman unsuccessfully argued today for his client's release pending sentencing, for the purpose of undergoing mental health treatment.

"There is a problem with Dr. Cham's brain," Sherman told the judge. "Let's call it (his ability to use) common sense. He's a very impulsive person."

Sherman said Cham has relinquished his medical license.

"He realizes he was not careful in his medical practice like he should've been," the attorney told the court.

Barron, though, argued that Cham should not be released prior to sentencing since he has a "repeated pattern of travel without authorization."

"The evidence is overwhelming," Barron said. "He is a severe danger to the public."

Pregerson denied Cham's release, finding that the defendant's "erratic behavior is concerning to me."

Cham also wrote multiple illegal prescriptions to Studio City resident Tracy Townsend, 53, who used at least five false identities, prosecutors allege. Townsend is named in the indictment but is still at large.

— City News Service, photo via Shutterstock