Ventura County – The Moorpark Family Medical Clinic has been under the watchful eye of the Ventura County Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit (PCU) since mid-November 2019.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Matthew Young, that was when deputies attached to the City of Moorpark Police Department first took “a report of fraudulent prescription activity” at the medical facility.
From that point forward, the PCU took an active role in investigating that report and began contacting employees of the Moorpark Family Medical Clinic to speak with them about their prescription-writing protocols.
As the PCU detectives began their work, they accessed the state’s Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURE), California’s system for monitoring the distribution and use of controlled substances by licensed medical professionals.
The CURE records pointed directly to 49-year-old Thousand Oaks resident Erik Bezema, MD, a practitioner at the medical clinic under investigation.
Evidence obtained by detectives working through the CURE records indicated that Bezema had “fraudulently obtained prescriptions” for Phentermine and Acetaminophen with Codeine on no fewer than 11 separate occasions.
After developing evidence of Bezema’s scheme over a period of two months, on January 17th detectives made contact with the good doctor at his Thousand Oaks residence and took him into custody. Bezema was transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on charges relating to the forgery of prescriptions and for identity theft.
Shortly thereafter, he posted bail and was released pending his January 30th arraignment in Ventura Superior Court.
Bezema currently remains licensed to practice medicine.
