A north Alabama cancer doctor had his medical license permanently revoked by a state licensing commission after the agency said he provided drugs to a 21-year-old woman he had a sexual relationship with who died of an overdose.
Dr. Sammy Becdach, an oncologist at the Clearview Cancer Institute in Decatur, entered into a settlement in June with the Medical Licensure Commission of Alabama that included having his license permanently revoked, according to a consent decree made public by the commission.
Becdach met the victim, only identified as a 21-year-old woman from Pelham, when she was 18 and working as a hostess at a restaurant, the woman’s mother told investigators.
The oncologist, the woman’s mother said, bought the victim a car, furnished an apartment for her in Huntsville and paid her bills.
He also provided her with “written prescriptions and actual pills,” the victim’s mother said.
The woman was afraid to leave Becdach because he told her he could make people “disappear,” and she told her mother the doctor would pour liquid OxyContin into her mouth and rape her.
A friend of the victim said the woman told her she became “highly addicted to opioids” and that Becdach “manipulated her through giving or withholding drugs when she began to experience withdrawals,” according to licensure commission records.
The victim died December 18, 2020 from accidental overdose of fentanyl and morphine. She was found in her bed “with a tan powdery substance and a makeshift snort straw,” the commission claimed.
Becdach told investigators he had sex with the victim “on more than one occasion” and wrote at least seven prescriptions for her.
He also admitted to paying some of the woman’s living expenses, giving her gifts, and engaging in a sexual relationship with her between the fall of 2017 and December 2020.
Becdach cannot appeal the revocation of his license, according to the terms of his settlement with the commission.
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