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Doctor pleads guilty after giving drugs to Fairfax man who overdosed

After learning of the victim’s death, the Virginia doctor created fake, backdated medical records to make it look like he had provided legitimate prescriptions.

FAIRFAX, Va. — A doctor who was licensed to practice medicine in both D.C. and Virginia pled guilty Tuesday after giving a man in Fairfax County drugs despite neither examining him nor having an established doctor-patient relationship. The man then died days later of an overdose.

Robert Cao, 39, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to five felony counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance outside the scope of his professional practice, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. 

Hon. Tanya Chutkan scheduled his sentencing for Feb. 22, 2023.

As part of his guilty plea, Cao -- who formerly lived in Falls Church -- admitted that on at least five occasions in 2021, he knowingly and intentionally wrote a man prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone, which are classified as Schedule II controlled substances with a high potential for abuse. 

"Cao provided the narcotic prescriptions to the 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," according to the office.

On May 31, 2021, first responders went to a Fairfax, Virginia home after his girlfriend reported finding the victim cold and non-responsive. He was pronounced dead under suspicious circumstances.

His autopsy report later documented the cause of death as acute combined oxycodone and ethanol poisoning. 

On the nightstand next to where the victim was found dead were prescription bottles, including one containing Percocet pills filled on May 23, 2021. Cao was the prescribing doctor listed on the bottle.

Court filings also detail text message exchanges between Cao and the victim including discussions about Cao prescribing the pain medications and meetings between the two, including one in a parking lot on the night before the man’s death.

As detailed in court documents, Cao took several steps to avoid detection from law enforcement and regulatory authorities. The physician advised the victim not to create a paper trail and to fill the prescriptions at times when they were least likely to be questioned by pharmacies. Cao also hid the pad that he used to write the man's prescriptions at his home inside a hollowed-out container made to look like a diary. 

In addition, after learning of the victim’s death, Cao created fake, backdated medical records to make it appear that he had provided legitimate prescriptions to the victim as part of a lawful doctor-patient relationship.

Cao currently resides in Lafayette, Louisiana.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Fairfax County Police Department and it is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anne P. McNamara and Christine Macey of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. 

   

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