Pharmacist Jailed for Medi-Cal Fraud

Pharmacist Nguyen Xuan Bach of Orange was sentenced Monday to one year in the Orange County Jail on his guilty plea to a single count of grand theft from the state Medi-Cal program.

Bach, 32, entered the plea Sept. 12 in exchange for dismissal of numerous other charges against him. He is one of 57 doctors, pharmacists, clerks and receptionists--33 of them from Orange County--charged in a statewide investigation of Medi-Cal fraud in Indochinese communities.

Bach accepted the jail sentence and its guarantee that he would serve no time in state prison as a condition of probation granted by Judge Phillip E. Cox in West Orange County Municipal Court. He had faced a maximum three-year prison term.

Bach’s wife, Truong Bich Loan, who also was a Medi-Cal defendant, rejected a similar offer in December and chose a 16-month prison term because, her lawyer said, she probably would have to serve only eight months in a local halfway house. Loan, a clerk, had entered a guilty plea to a single count of filing a false Medi-Cal claim.