Doctor Files Seized in Steroid Probe

GARDEN GROVE —  State and local law enforcement agents Thursday raided two offices of a physician who, they say, is under investigation for illegal prescription of anabolic steroids for bodybuilders.

No charges were filed against Dr. George Steven Kooshian, but the agents seized the medical records to try to corroborate information that the doctor has been prescribing the illegal drug for at least one year, according to J. D. Miles, special agent in charge of the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in Orange.

Miles said 16 agents from his agency, the Medical Board of California, the state Department of Justice’s medical fraud branch and Los Angeles County district attorney’s office raided the doctor’s offices at 9:30 a.m. and spent the entire day examining records. Miles would not say why the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office was involved, and investigators from that office were not immediately available for comment.

Miles said the seized records will be reviewed and presented to the Orange County district attorney’s office for possible felony charges of prescription of anabolic steroids without medical cause.

Anabolic steroids are synthetic hormones sold as pills or injectable liquids to add muscle mass. They were outlawed for non-medical use in California two years ago after dangerous side-effects began surfacing. The steroids can be administered legally for medicinal purposes, including repair of atrophied or torn muscles, but they cannot be sold for such purposes as bodybuilding.

Kooshian, 39, a general practitioner who was on his regularly scheduled day off Thursday, said he was not aware of the raids and declined further comment. Miles, however, said the physician had been notified of the action by telephone.

Miles said the investigation into Kooshian’s practice is part of a larger probe of illegal steroid prescriptions in the Orange County area. He declined to give specifics on the other cases.

The Kooshian investigation began in November, 1988, after state officials received a tip that the physician was dispensing anabolic steroids to bodybuilders from his two offices in Garden Grove, Miles said. One office is in the 12600 block of Garden Grove Boulevard and the other is in the 12000 block of Valley View Street.

Unlike other criminal cases in which a search warrant is served at the time of arrest, Miles said criminal charges involving a medical practice generally are not filed until after search warrant is served to seize a doctor’s medical records.

Miles explained that the records are necessary in order to verify information from former patients and other informants that the doctor was, in fact, dispensing drugs illegally. Miles said the agents were looking, specifically, for records pertaining to any bodybuilders on Kooshian’s patient list.

“We have some prior information that is the basis of the warrants,” Miles said, declining to elaborate on the sources of that information.

The investigation is being coordinated jointly by the state narcotics bureau and the state medical board, which supervises California’s physicians.