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A physician pleaded guilty Wednesday to defrauding California’s Medi-Cal system by prescribing unnecessary drugs to more than 1,000 patients, prosecutors said.
Dr. Mohammed El-Nachef entered pleas in Orange County to one count of insurance fraud and one count of aiding and abetting the unauthorized practice of medicine, according to a statement from the state attorney general’s office.
He was ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution and surrender his medical license.
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Dr. Mohammed El-Nachef pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and aiding and abetting the unauthorized practice of medicine in California on Sept. 28, 2022. (Fox News)
Prosecutors said that for two years beginning in 2014, El-Nachef prescribed unnecessary HIV medications, anti-psychotics and opioids to patients at clinics in Anaheim and Los Angeles.
The patients were Medi-Cal recipients who were recruited with the promise of cash payments, and the recruiters then illegally sold the drugs, prosecutors said.
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El-Nachef was recruited to write the unnecessary prescriptions and was paid in cash, prosecutors said.
"El-Nachef used his position as a physician to steal taxpayer money from our state programs and fuel illicit pharmaceutical sales on the streets of Southern California – all for personal gain," Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the statement. "Abuses of power – whether big or small – will never be tolerated by the California Department of Justice."
