Former Physician Fails to Undo Narcotics Conspiracy Guilty Plea

A former California physician who admitted to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances lost an appeal seeking to undo his guilty plea Monday after the Ninth Circuit said he failed to show it wasn’t knowing and voluntary.

Dzung Ahn Pham pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in 2022 a few months after the US Supreme Court decided Ruan v. United States.

He claims that he wasn’t adequately advised that Ruan required the government to prove that his prescriptions weren’t “authorized” under the Controlled Substances Act. Neither his plea agreement nor the colloquy expressly used the word “authorized” or “not authorized,” ...