Criminal charges were filed Monday against a 33-year-old doctor suspected of overloading a disabled man with drugs to speed up his death so that his organs could be harvested for a transplant operation.

Dr. Hootan Roozrokh of San Francisco faces charges of dependent adult abuse, administering a harmful substance, and prescribing excessive amounts of morphine and Ativan not for a legitimate medical purpose. He could face eight years in state prison and $20,000 in fines if convicted.

Roozrokh's lawyer, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, said Roozrokh has not committed a crime but has been unfairly subjected to an "18-month witch hunt."

The deceased man, Ruben Navarro, 25, had a neurological disorder and in January 2006 was living in a healthcare facility in San Luis Obispo. Late that month, he went into respiratory and cardiac arrest, and was transferred to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center and placed on a respirator.

On Feb. 3, 2006, Navarro was taken off life support in an operating room attended by Roozrokh, Dr. Arturo Martinez and at least four other staff employees of Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.

Roozrokh and a colleague from the Permanente Medical Group Inc. were there to recover Navarro's organs. In order for the organs to stay viable, however, they had to be collected within 30 minutes after his death.

When Navarro was taken off life support, he didn't die immediately. So, according to the complaint, Roozrokh ordered several lethal doses of morphine and Ativan.

Court records quote Roozrokh telling the hospital staff: "Let's give him some more candy."

Nothing killed Navarro within 30 minutes, so he was taken out of the operating room and placed in another room, where he died nine hours later. His organs were not harvested.

Wrongful death action filed

Navarro's mother, Rosa, of Oxnard, has filed a wrongful death action in San Luis Obispo County against Roozrokh; Martinez; the California Transplant Donor Network; Sierra Vista Hospital Inc. and its owner, Tenet Healthcare Corp.; and the Permanente Group Inc., which employs both Roozrokh and Martinez.

Before her son died, Rosa Navarro went to his bedside. Hospital staffers reported seeing Ruben Navarro crying and squeezing his mother's hand as she told him that it was OK to die.

Disturbed by what they'd seen, several staffers who were present in the operating room came forward and reported their concerns, prompting an investigation, according to Ventura lawyer Kevin Chaffin, who is representing Rosa Navarro.

She alleges that when she got to the hospital, Roozrokh met her and identified himself as "Ruben's doctor," then told her that there was nothing that could be done to save her son.

Chaffin said he has three witnesses from the hospital who were with Rosa Navarro when she was told that it was over "and they were pulling the plug and she has no choice in the matter."

That's disputed by Roozrokh, whose lawyer issued a statement saying the decision to end Ruben's life was "made by his mother in conjunction with the California Transplant Donor Network."

"Both decisions were made well before Dr. Roozrokh traveled to San Luis Obispo from San Francisco at the request of CTDN on the evening of Feb. 3, 2006," Schwartzbach said.

The San Luis Obispo Police Department, District Attorney's Office, state medical board and federal regulators are involved in the investigation.

Chaffin said Rosa Navarro is appreciative that the district attorney is "standing up for Ruben."

Kaiser says it's not involved

Kaiser Permanente issued a statement saying Roozrokh has volunteered to stop seeing Kaiser patients for several months. His employer, the Permanente Medical Group, has put him on administrative leave.

"The case did not involve a Kaiser Permanente patient, or a Kaiser Permanente hospital," the statement said. "The physician involved in this matter was working as part of an organ recovery team for the California Transplant Donor Network, an outside organ and tissue procurement organization at a non-Kaiser hospital in San Luis Obispo. The CTDN team was not recovering organs for the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals kidney transplant program or a Kaiser Permanente patient."

California Transplant Donor Network spokesman David Heneghan said his organization has not received anything concerning the civil case, and stressed that it is not a party to the criminal matter.

Roozrokh was employed as an organ-transplant surgeon by the Permanente Medical Group and was on call because his hospital participated in the California Transplant Donor Network.