Santa Ana Man Plans Different Career in Future : Phony Doctor Sentenced to 16 Months

A Santa Ana man who posed as a doctor at two urgent-care clinics for more than a year was sentenced by a Superior Court judge to 16 months in state prison Friday and said later that he will pursue another career when he is released.

Enrique Herrera, who pleaded guilty in July to practicing without a license and forging prescriptions, was allowed by Orange County Superior Court Judge Phillip E. Cox to report back on Monday for transfer to the state prison in Chino. His attorney, Roland G. Rubalcava, said Herrera would probably serve only three months because he will get credit for 160 days of time spent in the Orange County Jail awaiting trial and will be able to accumulate credit for good time at the prison.

“The judge could have given him six years in prison; we’re very pleased with this,” Rubalcava said.

Cox followed the recommendation of a diagnostic team at the Chino prison that Herrera be sent to state prison. But Cox said he gave Herrera a light sentence because he had no prior criminal record.

Herrera, accompanied by his wife, Sylvia, said he was relieved.

“I never hurt anybody,” Herrera said. “And I helped an awful lot of people, but that was never reported in the press.”

Herrera, 36, admitted that he had posed as a physician at Emergi-Care Family Center offices in Fountain Valley and Westminster.

He performed physical examinations, sutured wounds and administered other medical care.

He is a former Navy medical corpsman who has said he “always wanted to be a doctor.” He attended, but did not complete, a program for physician’s assistants at USC’s School of Medicine.

Herrera claims he practiced under the name Alvin James Stewart after buying the license from an Oxnard doctor who was about to retire. State medical investigators are still looking into the circumstances of that allegation.

Herrera was arrested last April after a clerk spotted a problem when Herrera applied to have a medical license renewed under the Stewart name. He has been free in recent weeks on $50,000 bail.

Herrera was known as Jim Smith to those who worked with him. While one patient complaint was made after Herrera’s arrest, he had a clean record with state medical investigators before the ruse was uncovered.

Herrera admitted in a statement to the county probation office that he was motivated in part by a desire to increase his income. He and his wife have one young child, and he has another child from a previous marriage.

Herrera said after court Friday that he did not know for certain what field he would pursue once he finishes his state prison sentence.