A physician assistant who lost her license but kept right on practicing and prescribing has been arrested and charged with six felonies.
It's a story Contact 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears first broke six years ago and has been following ever since.
Physician Assistant Angela Lorenzo has been called many things.
"I would say she was like a drug dealer. Whatever you wanted, she would give you for a fee," said Amber Pierce, whose mother's overdose death while in Lorenzo's care is the subject of an ongoing state investigation.
An employee we spoke to in 2013 said at the time, "The people that are suffering are the patients. And somebody's got to stop it."
After years of administrative action by the State Boards of Pharmacy and Medical Examiners, Lorenzo is finally facing criminal charges.
Her most recent supervising physician, Dr. Carmen Jones, said, "There was some disregard for the board's instructions and disregard for proper procedure, disregard for the laws and rules that she's governed by."
Lorenzo's disregard for the law is detailed in a report obtained by Contact 13.
The state charged her with fraud after finding she forged prescriptions for controlled substances using the DEA number of another former supervising doctor.
Lorenzo herself couldn't see patients or write prescriptions after she lost her license last October.
"I've always done my best to be a stellar physician's assistant, to provide the highest quality care and to document appropriately," Lorenzo told Darcy Spears in July 2013 when she was working under Dr. Darby Clayson.
"No one who we've spoken to has ever seen the doctor whose name is on their bills," Spears said. "Why is that?"
"Um, I don't know," Lorenzo answered. "I mean, Dr. Clayson works here. She's available at the patient's discretion."
Clayson cut ties with Lorenzo at the end of 2014 and later moved out of state, but it's her DEA number authorities found on prescriptions written at the end of 2017 from Lorenzo's Modern Medical and Wellness practice.
Court records show Clayson's information was used to fill six prescriptions for testosterone and the potent diet drug Phentermine, which Dr. Jones said "should not be--should never have been--should never be--given out randomly to everyone, or to anyone."
Lorenzo's preliminary hearing has been set for August 6.
Her attorney did not return our calls for comment.
