Physician Gets 9-Month Term in Drug Case
A Los Angeles physician who pleaded guilty to issuing false prescriptions for dangerous drugs was sentenced Wednesday to a nine-month term in County Jail.
Dr. John Claudius Weaver, 41, who operated the Brookside Medical Clinic in South-Central Los Angeles, will begin the sentence after he completes a 250-day jail term in September for failing to pay child support to his ex-wife and their 5-year-old son.
Weaver was arrested last summer after undercover narcotics officers from the state Department of Justice purchased 27 prescriptions from him without showing valid medical justification, prosecutors said. Weaver was charged with writing prescriptions for Preludin, an amphetamine, and Dilaudid, a drug chemically similar to morphine.
$300-a-Day Cocaine Habit
In a probation report, Weaver told authorities that he began issuing the false prescriptions after falling heavily into debt due to a $300-a-day cocaine habit. He said the habit developed after he broke up with his wife.
In issuing the sentence, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Roger Boren placed Weaver on three years’ probation and ordered the jail term as a condition of probation.
Weaver’s license to practice medicine was revoked in June by the State Board of Medical Quality Assurance as a result of the state narcotics investigation.
Weaver, a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., had worked at Los Angeles area medical clinics since moving here in 1978.
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