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Former Falls Church resident Robert M. Cao, now of Lafayette, Louisiana, pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance outside the scope of his professional practice, all felonies, in connection to his unlawful sale of narcotics, according to federal officials.
As part of his guilty plea, Cao admitted that on at least five occasions in 2021, he knowingly and intentionally wrote a man identified in court documents as “V.C.” prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Cao provided the narcotic prescriptions to his victim without having any doctor-patient relationship with him, without any physical examination, diagnosis, or treatment plan, and knowing that the victim had no medical condition that would necessitate such prescriptions, prosecutors said.
On May 31, 2021, first responders were dispatched to a Fairfax home in Virginia when “V.C.’s" girlfriend found him cold and unresponsive. He was pronounced dead “under suspicious circumstances.”
The autopsy determined that the cause of death was “acute combined oxycodone and ethanol poisoning,” and on the nightstand next to where the body was found, prosecutors said that there were prescription bottles, including one containing Percocet that was filled eight days before the overdose.
Cao was the prescribing doctor listed on the bottle.
According to court documents, text messages between Cao and his victim included discussions about the doctor prescribing pain meds in exchange for agreeing to give him a kickback of some of the pills he had prescribed.
There were also discussions about meetings between the two, prosecutors said, including meeting in a parking lot on the night before the overdose so that Cao could get a portion of the pills from “V.C.”
Once he knew that he was being investigated, Cao admitted to taking steps to avoid detection, advising “V.C.” not to create a paper trail, and to fill the prescriptions at times when they were least likely to be questioned by pharmacists.
Cao also hid the pad that he used to write the man prescriptions, which he had taken from a DC cosmetic office where he previously worked, at his home inside a hollowed-out container made to look like a diary.
After learning of the fatal overdose, prosecutors said that Cao also created fraudulent backdated medical records to make it look legitimate as part of a lawful doctor-patient relationship.
Sentencing for Cao has been scheduled for Feb. 22, 2023.
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