Former Psychiatrist Gets 10 Years For Illegal Prescribing

RIVERSIDE (AP) — A former psychiatrist has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for illegally prescribing drugs involved in the overdose death of an Orange County woman.

Seventy-three-year-old Joel Dreyer was sentenced Monday in Riverside. The Riverside Press-Enterprise says Dreyer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and distributing a controlled substance.

Prosecutors said that from 2004 to 2007, the former Murrieta psychiatrist illegally prescribed more than 100,000 pills of addictive drugs such as oxycodone, meeting patients at his office, in parking lots and restaurants and prescribing without a physical exam.

His prescriptions were linked to the 2005 death of 35-year-old Jessica Silva in Newport Beach.

Dreyer's attorney, William Ginsburg, says his client had a degenerative brain disorder that affected his moral judgment.

(© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)