About a week after documents were unsealed to reveal federal agents are investigating Dr. Iraj Derakhshan, the Charleston neurologist confirmed he has met with federal prosecutors and turned down a plea offer.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided Derakhshan's Quarrier Street office on Feb. 9, looking for the medical records of 64 patients who died from overdose between 2010 and 2015 while under his care, according to documents unsealed last week.
The doctor has not been charged. It's not unusual for prosecutors to engage in discussions with defendants and their attorneys before charges are brought and give them an opportunity to be charged through an information document, rather than an indictment. Taking a deal before being formally charged can result in a more favorable deal and, sometimes, allow a defendant to avoid arrest.
Derakhshan said he has met with Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller Bushong. A spokesman from the U.S. Attorney's Office said Tuesday he couldn't speak about the doctor's comments and said earlier this week that he wouldn't comment about the investigation into Derakhshan.
"Mr. Bushong wanted me to sign a plea bargain, which I refused," Derakhshan said Tuesday, "and that's where the matter stands."
A task force officer wrote in an application for a search warrant that there is probable cause to believe Derakhshan has violated federal law by distributing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the bounds of his medical practice.
Derakhshan denies those claims and said he told Bushong he wants a trial. Derakhshan is being represented by Charleston attorney and former U.S. Attorney Mike Carey. He couldn't be reached for comment Friday.
"Mr. Bushong even said, 'Oh I know that you did not have any bad intentions to harm anybody,' " Derakhshan said. "I truly believe these are blessings - opium and opiates are the most effective and the safest."
Derakhshan noted that, in suspending his license last month, the West Virginia Board of Medicine didn't find that he had improperly prescribed or dispensed controlled substances.
The board did find that the neurologist had failed to maintain appropriate medical records and had provided improper instructions for the use of controlled substances. His medical license was suspended for three years. He has appealed the suspension in Kanawha Circuit Court.
"[Lewis] Brewer felt I was acting according to the customary way of an honorable doctor," Derakhshan said. Brewer served as the hearing examiner for Derakhshan's case before the board.
In his application for a search warrant, Robert B. Dotson, a DEA task force agent, wrote that Derakhshan's practice included "Continuous opioid therapy," which involves placing a patient on long-acting opiates on a scheduled basis for the management of pain.
The practice of continuous opioid therapy contributed, in part, to a high prescriber ranking with the state Board of Pharmacy records monitoring program. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, Derakhshan was the fourth-highest prescriber of controlled substances. In 2014, he was eighth-highest and, in 2015, he was 23rd, but that's probably because, beginning in June 2015, he was stripped of his DEA registration, which is needed to prescribe drugs.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.