Santa Clarita Doctor Told to Stand Trial in Prescription Case

A Santa Clarita doctor was ordered Monday to stand trial on felony charges of illegally prescribing more than 5,000 pain pills to two women, with prosecutors alleging that the physician deliberately addicted the women to promote drug sales.

Dr. Sandra Soho, known as Dr. Stanley Soho before a 1986 sex-change operation, faces two counts of prescribing controlled substances for other than medical purposes. If convicted, Soho could be sentenced to a maximum of three years and eight months in prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bradford E. Stone alleged during a preliminary hearing in Newhall Municipal Court that Soho hooked patients on drugs and then profited from their frequent office visits to obtain new prescriptions.

“It was a thin veneer to cover a pill mill,” Stone said of Soho’s medical practice.

But Larry Baker, the doctor’s attorney, denied that Soho conspired to addict patients. Also, he argued, charges of improper professional conduct by a physician should be brought before state medical licensing authorities, not a local court.

Soho, who has pleaded innocent, did not speak during the hearing before Judge Floyd V. Baxter. Arraignment in San Fernando Superior Court is scheduled Dec. 3.

Soho originally faced 10 felony counts of furnishing controlled substances, but the changes were replaced with two charges that Stone said more accurately described activities involving two Santa Clarita women between August, 1989, and February of this year.

Debra Little testified that Soho wrote a prescription for 100 tablets of a codeine-fortified painkiller after a brief examination in August, 1989. Little had complained of back pain and headaches after a fall.

Soon, Little said, she was visiting Soho once or twice a week to receive a new prescription for 100 pills. “I could go in there any time, and she would give them to me,” Little said.

Little said that after she expressed concerns that pharmacists were growing suspicious about her frequent orders for drugs, Soho occasionally wrote out prescriptions for a “Debra Lehar” and gave the order slips to Little. Little said she offered Lehar as an alias after Soho asked her for a second name that could be used on the prescriptions.