Doctor Facing Loss of License : Medicine: Officials say the Fullerton physician has violated the terms of his probation.

A Fullerton doctor convicted of illegally prescribing highly addictive drugs is facing the loss of his medical license and charges that he violated the terms of his probation, court records show.

The Medical Board of California has begun steps to revoke the license of Dr. Tad E. Lonergan, who has a history of scrapes with the law and has been serving five months in jail for illegally issuing state-regulated narcotics.

At the same time, the Orange County district attorney’s office contends that Lonergan has been violating his probation, which allows him to leave Orange County Jail three days a week to continue his medical practice.

Among other things, prosecutors allege that Lonergan has denied medical board officials access to patient files to monitor his activity and make sure he is not writing more illegal prescriptions. The doctor has denied the charges.

While on probation, Lonergan has consistently been on the state’s “Top Prescriber List” for Southern California physicians--a distinction ordinarily reserved for doctors who treat the terminally ill, the Orange County district attorney’s office alleges in court documents.

For certain addictive medications, the state requires physicians to file special forms called “triplicates” when the drugs are prescribed.

In general, state Deputy Atty. Gen. Barry D. Ladendorf said: “If there’s inordinate amounts of (such prescriptions) being written, that’s an indication” of a possible violation.

“Most general practitioners don’t have a great need to write a lot of narcotic triplicates,” he said.

Lonergan pleaded not guilty to the probation violation last week in Orange County Superior Court. The doctor did not, however, appear at a medical board hearing, where Ladendorf recommended that his license be revoked.

Lonergan had been scheduled to be released from jail last week but is being held until his probation violation hearing on Feb. 22, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Bob Rivas.

Last week’s developments are the latest in a decade of legal tussles for the 57-year-old doctor. Lonergan was convicted of reckless driving after leading a Tustin police officer on a car chase in 1980, and pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, for which he was placed on two years’ informal probation in 1981, court records show.

In 1985, he was charged with lewd conduct in Fountain Valley after allegedly giving birth control pills to a 13-year-old girl who never asked for them, then making advances toward her, court records show. Lonergan pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, for which he was again placed on probation.

In 1988, Lonergan was charged with assault with a deadly weapon in Tulare County after allegedly shooting an intruder, but was acquitted in April, 1989, after a jury trial, Tulare County Superior Court records show.

Lonergan’s attorney, Robert Smith of Palm Springs, declined to comment on the doctor’s legal problems.

In the past, however, Lonergan has stated that he has been “targeted” for harassment by the state medical board since 1978, when he defended a colleague accused of improperly treating a patient, court records show.

Lonergan has also accused state medical officials of repeatedly sending undercover investigators into his office--a charge investigators deny.

“He has kicked patients out of his office and sent me letters saying, ‘Aha, you sent more people into my office,’ and I hadn’t sent anyone,” said Frank Heckl, senior special investigator for the medical board in Santa Ana.

According to court documents, Lonergan’s problems with the medical board began in 1983, when he admitted a patient to Chapman General Hospital in Orange, visited her the next day, and then forgot to see her again. The hospital discharged the woman five days later and reported Lonergan to the board.

The doctor was found to have abandoned the patient, and in 1985 his medical license was revoked. But he was allowed to continue practicing medicine under a 5-year term of probation, according to the state medical board.

The current criminal case against Lonergan began in 1984 with a complaint from a pharmacist who said that a young man whom Lonergan was treating for back pain had filled an unusual pair of prescriptions.

Lonergan had prescribed Tylenol with codeine and Doriden--known on the street as “fours and doors”--which, when combined, produce a heroin-like effect, court records show.

The state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement later sent two undercover operatives into Lonergan’s office, and he prescribed Tylenol with codeine for each of them.

A jury convicted Lonergan of five counts of unlawful prescribing in 1988. In March, 1990, an appeals court reversed two of the convictions and upheld the others. Lonergan was given a 5-month jail term.

In October, Lonergan received permission from the court to leave jail three days a week to maintain his practice, court records show. Under the terms of his probation, the doctor was to allow the medical board to inspect his patient files at any time.

But in a complaint filed in Orange County Superior Court in December, Deputy Dist. Atty. Connie F. Johnson alleged that Lonergan had not allowed the medical board to inspect his files and had violated other terms of the probation.

Johnson declined to discuss the case before the Feb. 22 hearing.

Meanwhile, the medical board considers Lonergan’s conviction on the illegal prescribing charges a violation of his 5-year medical probation, and is seeking to strip him of the license permanently. It is not unusual, Ladendorf said, to revoke a physician’s license for a first offense of illegally prescribing narcotics.