An Oklahoma City doctor was sentenced to prison three years ago after he was found guilty of second-degree murder for overprescribing drugs.

“There are, unfortunately though, those who are basically a drug dealer with a lab coat,” said Lisa Sullivan, manager for the DEA’s Diversion Program. “(There are a) very small amount of them, but they’re absolutely out there. And they result in people being overprescribed.”

DEA officials said doctors are tough to prosecute.

Amar Bhandary, an Oklahoma City psychiatrist, was charged in 2012 with 53 counts of illegal distribution of controlled substances. Federal prosecutors claimed the over prescribing resulted in the deaths of five people.

The trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial. Bhandary eventually pleaded guilty to health care fraud.

“In this case, the jury was not going to convict a doctor because the doctor says, ‘I’m trying to help patients in pain.’ All you have to create is a reasonable doubt,” said Richard Salter, assistant special agent in charge of DEA Oklahoma.

The DEA’s Diversion Program regulates pharmaceuticals in Oklahoma and works to make sure they’re used for legitimate medical reasons. The program has almost a dozen people working for it — compared to the nearly 17,000 practitioners in the Sooner state.

Those practitioners are also supposed to use an online prescription monitoring program to help people who “doctor shop.”

“They’ll hit five different doctors in a day, go to five different pharmacies,” Sullivan said. “If those doctors were to look at the PMP, they’d see that individuals were doing that, and they’d know they don’t need these medications for a legitimate need.

“And if they don’t, then they’re contributing to the problem.”

DEA officials have stressed that most physicians are trying to provide the best care to its patients. They also said after Valuck and Bhandary went to trial, many doctors on the DEA’s radar left the state.