Countywide : Namihas Retrial Date Set

A federal judge Monday denied a defense request to dismiss mail fraud charges against ex-Tustin gynecologist Ivan C. Namihas, setting the stage for his retrial Oct. 24.

U.S. District Judge Linda H. McLaughlin said the government had sufficient grounds to retry Namihas on 10 counts of mail fraud.

Prosecutors have alleged that Namihas tricked six patients into believing that they had deadly diseases such as cancer and AIDS, and then used the mail to bill them for more than $9,000 worth of unnecessary laser surgery.

Namihas, whose first trial ended in a hung jury in March, has denied the allegations. McLaughlin’s ruling came in response to a request by defense attorney Paul Meyer to dismiss the indictment against his client on constitutional grounds.

Namihas’ license was revoked by the California Medical Board in 1992 after more than 160 former patients alleged that he had sexually abused them.

But prosecutors did not press sexual assault charges against Namihas, saying that the statute of limitations had expired in most of the cases and that they lacked corroborating evidence.