Local Clinic Raided by DEA

On Feb. 21, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted raids in six communities in Southern California, including Chino Hills, Northridge, Del Mar, Corona, and one location in Long Beach, known as Vortex Wellness & Aesthetics. It is located at the Parkview office building on Viking Way where over a dozen businesses and agencies share a common hallway.

Gabriel Hernandez of Anaheim, 58, a physician assistant was arrested pursuant to a criminal complaint that charges him with distributing oxycodone without a legitimate medical purpose.

One occupant of a nearby storefront recalled there were a few different doctors that worked at the clinic, which opened about three years ago.

Jim Ault, manager of Parkview Village said, “There are three or four different doctors that rotate in that facility and hand out prescriptions.” He recalled that the doctor who was arrested, but whose name he could not recall, “worked there two days a week and dispensed prescriptions to the same people on a heavy basis. The DEA began tracking it and within one year, he had dispensed 6,000 prescriptions to a select few people. The doctor happened to be at the facility when they decided to raid it.”

A neighboring business owner recalled clients he identified as drug users that would show up and linger in the hallway. “I complained to Jim when they first came in,” but recalled he mentioned it only once. “If I mentioned something like that, he’d listen to me. They were all races, mostly younger people, you can tell when a person is a druggie. They’d smoke dope in the parking lot.”

A female employee of another business down the hall described them as “tattooed out and sketchy. Somebody thought they were parolees.”

Drug dealing has reportedly been a problem in the area. “Drug deals are still going on,” said the business owner. “We have a patrol officer that comes by and security cameras here. It’s slowed down because of their presence; used to be really obvious. People who go outside to smoke cigarettes see the drug deals.”

“About eight months ago, there was a white Ford Explorer that was running while it was parked. I knocked on the window and the driver said, ‘I’m leaving.’ Ault approached the Explorer, got the same response, so we called the cops, they knocked on the window. Found out the Explorer was undercover cops,” said Ault. “They were doing surveillance of the apartments north of the center.”

“I’m the only one that knew him,” said a female employee of the man she knew as Dr. Gabriel Hernandez. “He’s quiet, wears scrubs and has a crappy car; very incognito. I would go in there and talk to him about medical problems. One guy who visited twice brought a little girl with him. I remembered him because of the little girl. I heard the DEA went into his office undercover and had been watching him for two years.”

“When DEA showed up, we saw him in a DEA car in the front seat,” said the employee. That car drove off with another car in tandem.

“There were two girls that worked there, but they weren’t here every day. Other than they were a wellness, weight loss clinic, but I don’t remember their names.”

“They were open for business after the raid,” said Ault. “They still had their customers they were serving before the raid.” Ault described the Vortex office as “a place for testing clients referred to them for medical marijuana eligibility. All they did was qualify the individual. Every once in a while you might get comments about people waiting in the hallways.”

“I saw somebody moving out last weekend,” said the business owner. Midday in the middle of March, the Vortex sign was still on the door, which was locked tight. There was no response to several knocks on the door. Someone had posted a copy of a City News Service story onto a mailbox attached to the door.

According to court documents, over two years ending in November, Hernandez prescribed nearly 6,000 controlled substances, more than half were maximum-strength oxycodone, making him allegedly responsible for 446,000 oxycodone pills being dispensed.

Hernandez allegedly often wrote prescriptions for drug cocktails known as the holy trinity, a narcotic, a tranquilizer and/or a muscle relaxant, which are sought out by drug addicts and are particularly dangerous because of the threat of fatal overdose, according to the affidavit in support of the complaint. In 2017, Hernandez reportedly wrote a prescription for the three drugs to a 41-year-old man who died a week later from the combined effects of alcohol and two of the prescribed drugs, according to the criminal complaint.

In 2018, a pharmacist contacted investigators about suspicious and identical prescriptions Hernandez wrote to three people who appeared to be living in the same house over a hundred miles away from the Vortex clinic.

steve@beachcomber.news