Imprisoned ex-LV doctor dies in hospital

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2000 | 11:47 a.m.

A former Las Vegas doctor serving a four-year prison term for selling $1.5 million worth of drugs to patients who didn't need them has died.

Luisito Evangelista, who was imprisoned at the federal prison camp at Nellis Air Force Base, died Dec. 29 in a Las Vegas hospital.

Jeryl Kochera, prison camp spokeswoman, declined to comment on Evangelista's death this morning, but a source close to the case said Evangelista died of heart failure.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro sentenced Evangelista to 51 months in prison in August after he confessed to using his Illinois medical license to buy more than 500,000 tablets of prescription drugs from a Chicago pharmaceutical company. One of the drugs he bought, Hydrocodone, is synthetic codeine.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Evangelista was a licensed physician in Nevada and Illinois, but lost his Nevada license in September 1997 for prescribing drugs to patients who didn't need them.

In February 1999, Evangelista was indicted on drug trafficking charges.

When Evangelista pleaded guilty, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Garber said Evangelista had bought 20 times more drugs in a two-year period than a legitimate doctor would need.