Encino Doctor Arrested -- Again -- on Suspicion of Selling Narcotics

Originally posted at 7:43 p.m. Aug. 14, 2014. Edited with new details at 9:40 p.m.

An Encino doctor who was already awaiting trial on charges of prescribing and selling narcotics without a legitimate reason was arrested and charged along with one of his assistants for allegedly selling an additional controlled substance, prosecutors said today.

Yahya Hedvat, who runs a clinic called “Urgent Care,” was arrested Wednesday and jailed on $1 million bail on a single charge of sale of a controlled substance -- hydrocodone.

He had been scheduled to go on trial in two weeks on a 10-count indictment returned last year accusing him of unlawfully prescribing the drugs hydrocodone, clonazepam and suboxone, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Hedvat was free on his own recognizance while awaiting trial and had surrendered his federal license to prescribe controlled substances, prosecutors said.

But on Aug. 8, an undercover investigator with the California Medical Board went to his clinic and negotiated the purchase of narcotics, including Norco and Ativan, prosecutors said. Undercover agents then purchased the drugs in the clinic’s parking lot from Hedvat’s office assistant, Nikravan Hormuz, 70.

Hormuz was arrested today in court on a warrant charging him the sale of a controlled substance. Prosecutors plan to ask that his bail be set at $30,000, but it was not immediately clear if his arraignment had occurred yet. He faces up to five years in jail if convicted, prosecutors said.

Hedvat is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on the new charge. He faces up to 14 years and eight months in jail if convicted of all counts against him in both cases.

--City News Service

PHOTO Patch file photo.