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A former doctor who had a practice in Los Gatos has been sentenced to four years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in a case involving a 29-year-old man who died as a result of a drug interaction in January 2012.

Jasna Mrdjen M.D,, 74, ran a pain management clinic in Los Gatos where Santa Clara County prosecutors say she was writing excessive prescriptions for pain medications to patients with minimal evaluation and sometimes without prior medical records. Investigators from multiple law enforcement agencies began looking into her clinic in 2011 after one of Mrdjen’s patients was caught selling the drugs she had prescribed.

During the course of one investigation she prescribed drugs to an undercover officer posing as a patient with foot pain without ever removing her shoe to examine the affected foot, prosecutors said.

With respect to the manslaughter charges, Mrdjen first saw the victim, Steven English, 28, on April 11 , 2011. The medical records did not include a physical examination. Mrdien gave a diagnosis of acute back strain, wrist strain, status post old poorly healed fracture of the wrist, and right hand weakness. The only treatment plan was to take Norco every four to six hours as needed. The record did not include the number of tablets prescribed.

Records reflect that his back pain resolved after his second visit on May 23 , 2011. There was no explanation for the continued use of high dose opioids after the lumbar strain resolved for many months.

On November 11, 2011, English entered the Betty Ford Center treatment program. He was released on January 2 , 2012. Mrdjen prescribed Oxycodone, Flexeril and Clonazepam to English on January 3, 2012 – just one day after he’d returned from this drug treatment rehabilitation program.

Two weeks later, English was found dead at his parents’ home in Truckee and the official cause of death was determined to be multiple drug ingestion.

Mrdjen later altered English’s file and forged English’s signature, according to prosecutors.

On Sept. 26, 2016, she pleaded no contest to nine counts of prescribing a controlled substance without a legitimate purpose, two counts of dispensing a controlled substance to an addict, one count of conspiracy and one count of involuntary manslaughter.

California medical board records reflect that she was a graduate of the University of Zagreb Faculty of Medicine in 1968, and admitted to practice in 1977. She claimed to have certifications from the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Here medical license was surrendered on December 4, 2012.

The case was investigated by the Santa Clara County Specialized Enforcement Team, the Medical Board of California, the state Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Mountain View and Los Gatos/Monte Sereno police departments.