Elizabethtown Doctor Indicted On 98 Drug Charges

(ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky.) -- A Hardin County doctor has been indicted on more than 90 felony drug counts.

David A. Dao, 57, of Elizabethtown, faces 98 charges of illegally prescribing and trafficking prescription painkillers. Dao formerly worked at Hardin Memorial Hospital and owned a medical practice.

A co-defendant, Brian D. Case, 28, also was indicted on 33 felony drug charges.

Prosecutors allege that Dao and Case fraudulently filled prescriptions at various pharmacies in Elizabethtown for narcotic drugs such as hydrocodone, Oxycontin and Percocet.

Meanwhile, Dao is appealing a conviction in Louisville on charges of writing prescriptions and checks to a patient in exchange for sex and part of the drugs the patient obtained with the prescriptions. He was acquitted of seven other counts of obtaining drugs through fraud and a trafficking charge.

Similar charges in Nelson County against Dao were dismissed.

Daos license currently is suspended by the state medical board. He is classified as inactive on the board's website.

Dao and Case are scheduled to be arraigned in Hardin District Court on Jan. 24.