Pair Suspected of Posing as Doctors Are Arrested

Police arrested two Santa Ana men Tuesday on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license from a neighborhood garage where investigators seized at least $10,000 worth of medical equipment and medicine.

The men, identified as Manuel Javier King, 61, and Hector Raul Becerra, 29, allegedly treated between 10 to 20 patients a day in the garage behind a house in the 1200 block of South Broadway, Santa Ana Police Lt. Earl Porter said.

Investigators, working on a tip from an informant, went to the house and arrested the men as one of them was administering a shot to a 6-month-old child, Porter said.

The men allegedly practiced general family medicine and did not perform any surgical procedures, police said.

During the arrests, police seized an assortment of medical equipment, including syringes and IV bottles. Antibiotics and other medicines were also taken as evidence, police said.

According to residents of the middle-class neighborhood with well-tended homes, a steady stream of Latinos flocked to the house at all hours of the day or night. The neighbors said they did not know what was taking place at the house, and some said they feared that drugs were being sold because of the amount of traffic.

Mary Lou Valenzuela, who lives across the street, said there have been “a lot of people coming, asking if we knew of a certain doctor. One young couple asked for a doctor around here, but I never knew what was going on.

“It’s scary to think of something like this happening here. I have a hard time trying to understand,” she added.

Valenzuela said all the people who have come to her door spoke only Spanish and seemed to be poor.

Teri Delmuro, another resident, said she has also talked to people looking for medical care.

“They come all hours of the day and night, knocking on the door, looking for a doctor,” Delmuro said. “They’re people that are lower-income people.

“You’re living right there and not even aware of what’s happening right there on your street. That’s what’s so dumbfounding.”

Delmuro said visitors began appearing at the house in large numbers about eight to 10 months ago when some new people moved into the home. Police, however, said that neither of the two suspects lived at the house.

“I was concerned with the fact that there was a constant flow of traffic,” Delmuro said, adding that she thought someone was dealing drugs at the house.

Even after the arrests, several people drove up, saying they were looking for “the doctor.”

Luz Elena Ortiz, a 33-year-old mother holding her 2-year-old son, Tony, walked up to the garage. She said that the child had run a high fever for the past couple of days and that she was there to see a doctor that a friend had told her about.

“There are a lot of people who know him,” she said. “A friend of mine came to him in the past and was happy with him.”

Ortiz, who lives in Santa Ana, came from Chihuahua, Mexico, two years ago, before Tony was born, she said.

“They say he’s good to the children,” she said as she left with her son.