OAKLAND — For the previous eight months, state and federal authorities have investigated a suspected drug trafficking group in East Contra Costa County that got here with an sudden twist: A Walnut Creek dentist was allegedly buying and selling opiate prescriptions for cocaine.
In a just lately unsealed federal grievance, federal prosecutors within the Bay Space charged Alireza Moheb with distributing a managed substance and conspiracy to accumulate prescription capsules by fraud. The charging information allege Moheb conspired with two Antioch-area drug sellers; each their names have been redacted from public courtroom information.
Moheb was launched on a $100,000 bond at a courtroom look July 2. His lawyer didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In response to federal authorities, the investigation began with a visitors cease in Antioch in October 2020 during which a police officer seized greater than a half-pound of cocaine from one in all Moheb’s alleged co-conspirators. That led to a search of the person’s telephone, which allegedly turned up proof that Moheb had been submitting fraudulent prescriptions for months.
“Between March 7, 2019, and the current, Moheb has written prescriptions for roughly 555 Norco capsules to varied members of the drug trafficking group,” Amanda Fielding, a particular agent for the Drug Administration, wrote in an affidavit dated June 28, 2021. She later added, “Brokers imagine Moheb didn’t have a reputable medical goal for writing these prescriptions and was doing so to acquire cocaine from (redacted) and (redacted).”
Textual content messages seized from the 2 alleged co-conspirators’ telephones, and included within the felony grievance, point out that Moheb was allegedly receiving a normal charge of $300 value of cocaine for submitting prescriptions. In March 2019, he texted one of many males that he was prepared to produce Norco — a prescription painkiller — however mentioned the recipient would “need to go to one of many workplaces create account take one x-ray. To indicate you’re a affected person of file,” the DEA alleges.
Moheb’s alleged relationship with the boys began months earlier than he resolved a multi-count formal accusation filed in 2018 by the Dental Board of California. It accused Moheb of overcharging one affected person, failing to comply with one other’s remedy plan — leading to implants falling out of the affected person’s mouth — and quite a lot of alleged missteps with a 3rd affected person, together with failing to offer paperwork for a painkiller prescription. In August 2019, Moheb’s dental license was positioned on a five-year probation and he was ordered to pay the board roughly $27,000, information present.
Because the months glided by, Moheb allegedly coached the boys on find out how to keep away from suspicion, at one level telling them to make use of older folks’s names in prescription slips as a result of “youthful is a purple flag,” and warning them to not use the identical recipient too many occasions, based on the grievance. In November 2019, when a pharmacist rejected one in all Moheb’s prescriptions for codeine syrup, Moheb angrily texted one of many alleged co-conspirators that he was having his employees file a grievance
“Giving me a tough time for codeine is full (expletive) what if this was an actual affected person,” Moheb allegedly texted.
After the October 2020 visitors cease, one of many co-conspirators allegedly texted Moheb that the opposite had been arrested for a pistol and possession of narcotics with a $50,000 bail. Moheb’s response, based on the grievance, was an acronym for “f— my life,” however then minutes later he was allegedly discussing one other cocaine-for-pills commerce.
In February, DEA brokers raided Moheb’s house and Walnut Creek enterprise, discovering greater than an oz. of cocaine and $45,000 in money in his residence, in addition to a prescription record containing alleged co-conspirators at his enterprise, the grievance says.
