Tulsa doctor accused of trafficking drugs
TULSA — Federal agents allege a south Tulsa doctor has eight overdose deaths tied to his name.
Special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration in late January raided Christopher Moses' office, Southside Medical at 8222 S Harvard Ave., as part of an investigation into alleged drug trafficking and drug diversion — diverting prescription drugs from their legal purpose — operating at the clinic.
Agents cited the eight patient deaths, the volume of prescriptions and undercover purchases of narcotics in an application seeking a search warrant for his office.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency began investigating Moses, who operates Southside Medical, "based on complaints ... that Dr. Moses was prescribing large amounts of prescription narcotics," Special Agent Darren Glanz states in an affidavit.
Agents seized 63 boxes of documents and four bags of hard drives, according to the returned documentation of the search warrant. The federal search warrants were unsealed late last week.
Glanz cites eight overdose deaths in the affidavit for a search warrant. Those eight deaths allegedly link back to Moses' prescriptions for narcotics.
One woman was found
dead in February 2017 with a fentanyl patch in her mouth, one on her back and three used patches on her nightstand, according to the affidavit. Her prescription was a 30-day supply filled just six days earlier.
Others were found dead from acute combined drug toxicity. A 33-yearold Tulsan in 2013 died from such toxicity. He filled a prescription on Aug. 21, 2013, for oxycodone and alprazolam, a mild tranquilizer, and was found dead two days later. Tulsa police found empty pill bottles for the painkiller and tranquilizer, as well as a third empty prescription filled the same date.
Moses was the only physician to prescribe controlled substances to that Tulsan in August 2013, according to the search warrant affidavit.
Medical examiners and investigators in a different death noted that individual died from a cocktail of morphine, oxycodone and alprazolam. Law enforcers were told that man acquired the morphine of his own volition. According to the affidavit, Moses prescribed the oxycodone and alprazolam.
Moses’ office said he was busy with patients
Monday morning and that he would not comment “due to the investigation.” Moses’ registrations with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Oklahoma Board of Osteopathic Examiners remained in good standing, as of Monday morning. A DEA spokesman did not return request Monday morning to check Moses’ registration status with that agency.
Moses allegedly wrote about 25,400 prescriptions from January 2016 to Jan. 3, equating to about seven prescriptions per hour, according to the affidavit.
Painkillers — methadone, fentanyl patches, hydrocodone and oxycodone — and alprazolam accounted for about 70 percent of those prescriptions, Glanz states in the affidavit.
Starting in early September, DEA agents went undercover to “in order to obtain a prescription for controlled substances without a valid medical purpose,” Glanz states in the affidavit.
The first undercover agent presented fake medical documents, complained of low pain and did not exhibit symptoms. Glanz states that agent was prescribed hydrocodone. On a follow-up exam, Moses prescribed a greater quantity.
A second undercover agent made a similar gambit. Moses allegedly
wrote a prescription for painkillers and told the agent that he would need an X-ray exam before another prescription could be written. The agent did not return for an X-ray.
During follow-up visits to Moses’ office, the agents were prescribed Narcan, a drug used to treat overdoses. Moses reportedly told the agent it was a safety issue. He
reportedly told the agent “we don’t want anybody dying because of the medication we wrote for them,” Glanz states in the affidavit.
The two undercover agents conducted at least seven visits since September, noting that consultations were brief after initial visits, noting that at least two visits with Moses were shorter than five minutes.