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July 3, 2009

Moore doctor sentenced to 9 years in jail

By M. Scott Carter

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A Moore doctor was sentenced to nine years and one month in federal prison for illegal distribution of prescription drugs this week.

Prosecutors said Can D. Phung wrote prescriptions for painkillers without physically examining patients and saw some patients just in the clinic's lobby, according to testimony.

Phung, officials said, had so many patients they sometimes had to wait two to three hours to be seen, and would line up outside before the clinic opened.

Prosecutors called him "a drug dealer."

Phung, 61, of Moore told U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange that drug abusers "took advantage of his compassion."

Miles-LaGrange said she found that very hard, if not impossible, to believe.

Phung was found guilty in February of 51 counts of illegal distribution of prescription drugs, one count of Medicaid fraud and one count of obstruction of justice.

Last week, he was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, $4,612 in restitution to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority and a $5,300 special assessment to the United States.

One of his patients, Ian Upchurch, 22, of Mustang, died in March 2007 after overdosing on pain pills and alcohol, an autopsy report shows. Phung faces a civil lawsuit in Oklahoma County District Court over Upchurch's death.

Phung was a surgeon in South Vietnam and fled after communists took over, records show. He came to the United States in 1978.

Phung said he plans to appeal. He has complained he was singled out for prosecution, and that many other doctors have prescribed pills to the same patients who testified against him.

M. Scott Carter 366-3545 scarter@normantranscript.com

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