Dr. Alvin Mingczech Yee Gets 11 Years+ for Prescribing Drugs to Young “Patients” at Starbucks, at Least 2 of Whom O.D.'d

ALVIN!

Sorry, chipmunks: Alvin Mingczech Yee, the 44-year-old Mission Viejo physician who prescribed prescription painkillers to young people he often met at Starbucks–leading to the overdose deaths of at least two “patients”–has been sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison.

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We'd reported in April that a plea deal was being cooked up:

Dr. Alvin Yee, Who Saw Young “Patients” at Starbucks, Prescribed Drugs and Had One Die from O.D., to Plead Guilty to Federal Counts

That piece revealed at least one who Yee prescribed drugs had died, but the sentencing documents state there were two.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford sentenced Yee Thursday to 135 months in prison, according to Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office, which had recommended a 121-month sentence.

Yee was originally arrested at a Starbucks where he met undercover agents posing as patients. He pleaded guilty in April to seven counts of illegal distribution of a controlled substance by a practitioner–the drugs including oxycodone and alprazolam.

The case folds into what's been identified as a prescription drug overdose epidemic among young people in South County:

Behind the Orange Curtain and the OC OD Tsunami

Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

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