Man pleads guilty to helping a Santa Ana psychiatrist to illegally sell prescription drugs

William Jason Plumley, 41, a Huntington Beach man accused of conspiring with a Santa Ana psychiatrist to sell prescription opioids, pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal drug-distribution charges according to the O.C. Register.

Plumley accepted a plea deal that required him to admit to federal charges of distributing methamphetamine and conspiring to distribute controlled substances.

Federal prosecutors said that Plumley operated as a broker for Dr. Robert Tinoco Perez, a Westminster resident and operator of a Santa Ana clinic who was arrested in June of this year by special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Perez was named in a 14-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury on June 27, 2018. The indictment charged Perez with selling prescriptions to drug customers, as well as to brokers, like Plumley, who sold the drugs obtained from filling the prescriptions and split the profits with Perez.

Perez wrote prescriptions for “patients” he had never met or examined, including an undercover officer, according to his indictment. Perez and his co-conspirators allegedly created fictitious medical records for drug customers to provide justification for their prescriptions.

The drugs alleged to have been prescribed illegally by Perez included oxycodone and hydrocodone (both opioid pain medications), amphetamine salts (sold primarily under the brand name Adderall), and alprazolam (sold primarily under the brand name Xanax).

Plumley was alleged to have sold both prescriptions written by Perez and the drugs filled from his prescriptions. Plumley was already in federal custody on a previous indictment alleging that he sold methamphetamine, when Perez was arrested.

The indictment charging Perez and Plumley alleged one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, 12 counts of illegal distribution of oxycodone without a legitimate medical purpose, and one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Each of the defendants was charged in multiple, but not all, illegal distribution counts.

Plumley admitted in his plea bargain that he obtained the prescriptions from Perez, sold them for cash and that he would then split the proceeds with the doctor. In a separate criminal case, Plumley also admitted to being a meth dealer.

Plumley will be sentenced on Dec. 13. Perez is still awaiting his trial. Perez may face a potential sentence of over 100 years in federal prison.