Prosecution Wraps Up Landmark Murder Case Against Dr. in Lake Forest Overdose

A prosecutor urged jurors today to convict a former Rowland Heights doctor of second-degree murder for the drug overdose deaths of three male patients in their 20s, saying that she had been put on notice after being alerted about other patients dying of suspected overdoses.

“She was repeatedly informed they were dying,” Deputy District Attorney John Niedermann told jurors during his closing argument in the trial of Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng, 45.

Jurors are expected to hear Thursday from defense attorney Tracy Green, who said in her opening statement that the doctor lacked the street smarts to know how prescription drugs such as oxycodone can be abused.

Tseng is charged with three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Vu Nguyen, 29, of Lake Forest, Steven Ogle, 25, of Palm Desert and Joseph Rovero III, a 21-year-old Arizona State University student from San Ramon, between March and December 2009. The jury can also consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

She is also facing 20 counts of unlawfully prescribing controlled substances and one count of fraudulently prescribing a controlled substance.

Nguyen, Ogle and Rovero each died shortly after receiving prescriptions from Tseng, with Ogle dying barely a month after Nguyen’s death, the prosecutor said.

“Our argument to you is that she wasn’t treating these patients ... It was a business,” Niedermann told jurors.

The prosecutor told the Los Angeles Superior Court panel that the demographics of Tseng’s patients changed over time to “young kids 18 to 25” driving in from Orange County or Riverside and waiting two to three hours to see the doctor.

Some pharmacists called in concern over prescriptions that had been written by Tseng, and the doctor was fielding calls from coroners’ offices about deaths of some of the patients she had seen, Niedermann said.

“The defendant is creating a captive audience ... by providing people these prescriptions,” the deputy district attorney said, calling Tseng’s prescription methods “unique” and “one of a kind” and saying that she did not change the way she practiced.

The prosecutor alleged that Tseng was “manufacturing” medical records about some of her patients to try to “protect herself and justify what she’s done,” while other patients had “no treatment records at all.”

A receptionist who worked at Tseng’s office reported overhearing the doctor say about her patients, “They’re druggies. They can wait,” according to Niedermann.

In some instances, he said, Tseng’s office was called by patients’ relatives asking her to stop giving them prescriptions or to cease her visits with them.

Tseng, an osteopathic doctor, agreed in February 2012 to surrender her license to practice, just before being arrested in connection with the criminal charges.

Tseng’s attorney told jurors at the start of the case that her client was a “soft touch” and was “not street smart.”

“She was nerdy ... (and) didn’t have a full appreciation of what was going on out there,” Green said.

The defense lawyer contended that the three patients named in the murder counts had taken “large amounts of drugs ... far in excess of what was prescribed.”

City News Service; Wikimedia Commons