LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles physician who investigators call the second most prolific provider of prescription drugs in the country has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Sixty-eight-year-old Carlos Estiandan was sentenced Wednesday.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says Estiandan was second only to Johns Hopkins University in the total number of prescriptions written in 2008.
A Superior Court jury found him guilty in March of 13 felony counts of unlawfully prescribing controlled substance.
Estiandan came to the attention of the DEA in a statewide database that tracks prescriptions issued by physicians.
Authorities say that as part of a three-year investigation, an undercover sheriff's deputy obtained 12 prescriptions from Estiandan without ever being examined.
