LOS ANGELES -A doctor convicted of murder for prescribing exorbitant amounts of painkillers that left three patients dead has been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
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Dr. Hsiu Ying “Lisa” Tseng, a Walnut resident, read a statement during her sentencing at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles.
“Lisa Tseng is here as one piece of a puzzle that affected a lot of individuals’ lives”, Green told the judge, noting that the prescriptions were filled by pharmacies and that some of Tseng’s patients were seeing other doctors, as well.
Tseng’s case has been closely watched by doctors and lawyers alike because prosecutors say she is the first general practitioner to be convicted of murder for “recklessly” providing drugs to patients, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Tseng’s attorney accused investigators of a “rush to judgment” and of singling Tseng out while failing to interview other doctors who may have treated the patients, who she said took “far in excess” of the dosages prescribed by Tseng.
Tseng’s defence team portrayed her as a naive doctor who was manipulated by her patients.
Tseng, wearing blue jail scrubs, apologized to the victims’ families, her family and “medical society”. ‘I have been and forever will be praying for you. It came after a dozen of her patients died.
District Attorney Jackie Lacey said the conviction sent an unflinching message to medical professionals.
She formed a nonprofit after her son died.
The mother of two children will be over 70 before she has a chance at release.
The 45-year-old Tseng was convicted of 20 drug-related counts.
But she began falsifying records after she was approached by the Medical Board of California about the fatalities.
Tseng’s lawyer said her client naively trusted her patients. President Obama’s 2017 budget recommendations also includes approximately $1 billion in funding directly targeted at reducing the nationwide epidemic of heroin and prescription-pill addiction. Rovero, Ogle and Nguyen, who Tseng knew were drug seekers, died between March and December of 2009.
Before sentencing, Green told Lomeli that Tseng bore some – but not all – responsibility for the misery that flowed from her prescription pad.
Dr. Tseng, whose practice was based in Rowland Heights, Calif., was only charged with killing three patients because some of the deaths included other factors, including one possible suicide.
Moments before imposing sentence, Lomeli said Tseng ran a reckless “assembly line” style practice that raked in millions of dollars while patients and their families suffered. Still, prosecutors said she continued to prescribe opioids, muscle relaxants and anti-anxiety medications in massive quantities.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Luotto Wolf, who prosecuted both doctors, said she focused on drug dealing charges because they carried sufficiently stiff sentences and were not subject to cause-of-death determinations, which can be very complicated in doctor prosecutions.
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Dr. Francis Riegler, a pain specialist who works in Palmdale, Calif., said he has followed Tseng’s case and talked about the prosecution with fellow doctors across the country.
