Doctor accused of looking up Oct. 1 gunman’s prescriptions keeps license

A Las Vegas weight loss doctor accused of improperly accessing the prescription records of Oct. 1 gunman Stephen Paddock shortly after the mass shooting will keep his prescribing license, according to the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy.

Revocation of Dr. Ivan Goldsmith’s prescribing license was stayed and he was instead placed on a yearlong probation and ordered to pay $26,000 in attorney fees and fines, the regulatory board decided Wednesday.

He will be allowed to treat patients as he winds down his Las Vegas practice, TrimCare, and makes the transition to living full-time in Florida, where he is also licensed to practice medicine but plans to work in finance with family members, his attorney, E. Brent Bryson, said.

Board co-counsel Brett Kandt wrote in an email that Goldsmith also was told to create internal procedures prohibiting staff at his practice from accessing the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program database unlawfully.

Goldsmith was accused of accessing the system to look up Paddock’s records on five occasions following the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting that killed 58 and wounded hundreds more, according to a board complaint dated May 1.

Goldsmith last accessed Paddock’s prescription profile on Oct. 3.

The same day, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an exclusive report that said Paddock had been prescribed diazepam, the generic version of anti-anxiety drug Valium, citing the Prescription Monitoring Program as the source. The newspaper obtained the prescription information on the condition that it protect the identity of the source who provided it.

“The Review-Journal and other Nevada media, under state law, cannot be compelled to identify confidential sources of information to authorities,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said Thursday.

Kandt stated in his email Thursday that Goldsmith’s account “is the only possible source for the details in the Las Vegas Review Journal article.”

While two other practitioners attempted to access the records, only Goldsmith was successful. The pharmacy board locked Paddock’s records shortly after the Review-Journal’s story was published.

Goldsmith had planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to withhold potentially incriminating information at Wednesday’s board meeting in Reno, but didn’t have to, Bryson said. In anticipation of Goldsmith’s plan, board members did not ask the doctor for information on the case, he said.

“I’m glad that Dr. Goldsmith retained his license, really so that he can continue to assist the community with medical services while he goes into the next step of his life,” Bryson said Thursday. “As long as he doesn’t violate other rules, it’s ‘no harm, no foul.’”

Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.