Prosecutors seek indictment against Desai, two others on criminal charges

Clark County prosecutors Thursday asked a grand jury to indict Dr. Dipak Desai, the central figure in the valley's hepatitis C scare in 2008, and two of his former clinic workers on criminal charges, a well-placed courthouse source told the Review-Journal.

Indictments are normally unsealed in District Court on Friday mornings.

Desai, who once enjoyed strong community and political connections, ran the endoscopy clinics where health officials said patients had been infected with the hepatitis C virus because of unsafe injection practices.

Prosecutors with the district attorney's major crime and fraud units -- who spent much of the afternoon behind closed doors with the grand jury -- were looking to charge Desai with several felonies, including patient neglect and insurance fraud, the source said.

At least seven patient neglect charges could be included in an indictment of Desai -- one for each of the seven people health officials said were infected with hepatitis C at Desai's now-closed main clinic, the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, 700 Shadow Lane, the source said.

Prosecutors previously have said they couldn't recall the district attorney's office ever filing a patient neglect charge against a physician.

The statute requires prosecutors to prove that Desai and his staff reused syringes and vials of the sedative propofol to save money knowing that they were endangering the lives of patients.

Las Vegas police investigated the case under the theory that the patients who were infected with the virus suffered substantial bodily harm. Each count of patient neglect that results in substantial bodily harm is punishable under the law by a maximum of six years in prison.

Desai's chief criminal lawyer, Richard Wright, said late Thursday that he had not heard about any grand jury activity in the case during the day, and he declined further comment.

The identities of the two clinic employees prosecutors have sought to indict with Desai could not be learned, but the courthouse source said the workers were anesthetists involved in administering the sedative propofol to patients during routine colonoscopies.

Prosecutors confirmed in March that they had begun presenting witnesses to the grand jury. They had planned to seek an indictment that month, but they ended up calling additional witnesses and ran into problems scheduling time with the grand jury.

At least a half-dozen former clinic patients infected with the hepatitis C virus were among those who have testified before the grand jury, the courthouse source said.

In November, when they brought the criminal case to the district attorney's office for prosecution, Las Vegas police recommended Desai and at least four other clinic workers be charged.

The criminal investigation, which began shortly after health officials disclosed the hepatitis C outbreak in February 2008, was one of the largest police said they had ever undertaken. A final report submitted by police to the district attorney's office was 100 pages with some 10,000 pages of supporting documents. In all, police said they interviewed some 100 witnesses, seized 100 computers and pored over 100,000 patient files.

Desai came under scrutiny after the Southern Nevada Health District linked cases of hepatitis C to the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Officials notified 40,000 former clinic patients about possible exposure to blood-borne diseases because of unsafe injection practices. More notifications followed to patients of a sister clinic, Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center.

Investigators blamed the outbreak on nurse anesthetists reusing single-dose medicine vials among patients.

Clinic staff told health investigators they were ordered by administrators, principally Desai, to reuse supplies and medications to save money, according to a city of Las Vegas letter suspending the Shadow Lane clinic's business license.

In the months following the hepatitis outbreak, Desai's lawyers have said he was in ill-health because of a series of strokes. He has given up his license to practice medicine and filed for bankruptcy. He also has become a defendant in dozens of medical malpractice lawsuits, involving several thousand former patients.

Last month, in the first trial stemming from the massive endoscopy litigation, a jury awarded Las Vegan Henry Chanin and his wife $500 million in punitive damages after finding the drug companies who distributed propofol to Desai's clinics liable in his hepatitis C infection at the Desert Shadow clinic. Desai had reached an undisclosed settlement with the Chanins prior to the trial.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135 or read more courts coverage at lvlegalnews.com.