Also named in the search warrant is United Pharmacy of Los Angeles and pharmacist Farid Pourmorady of Beverly Hills, the owner of United. Court documents indicate the DEA's investigation began in 2015 and targets a "drug trafficking organization" (DTO) that includes United and "multiple physicians whose prescriptions are filled at United, focusing in particular on Tennant."

"The crimes perpetrated by the DTO include the sale of powerful prescription narcotics such as oxycodone and fentanyl, along with other dangerous and addictive controlled drugs often sought in combination with narcotics, based on invalid prescriptions issued by practitioners including Tennant," the documents say. "United has been submitting millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare prescription drug claims, namely, claims for the cost of filling invalid narcotic prescriptions, including those issued by Tennant."

The search warrant identifies about $2 million in prescriptions written by Tennant that were filled at United for just five patients, three of whom live out-of-state. Tennant told PNN in a phone interview that the allegations were bizarre.

"I have no financial relationship with anybody. My clinic is fundamentally almost a charity," he said.

Tennant is a revered figure in the pain community because of his willingness to see patients with intractable chronic pain who are unable to find effective treatment elsewhere or have been abandoned by their doctors. At 76, Tennant could have retired years ago, but regularly sees about 120 patients at his modest pain clinic in West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb. Many patients travel from out-of-state to see him, and some are in palliative care and expected to die within a year.

Tennant, along with his wife and office manager, Miriam, jokingly refers to their clinic as a “mom and pop” operation, although in actuality he practices on the frontlines of pain management and has developed treatment protocols for difficult and incurable conditions such as adhesive arachnoiditis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD).

Those treatments sometimes require high doses of opioid pain medication, but they also include hormone replacement, anti-inflammatory drugs and other therapies that help patients reduce their use of opioids.

Tennant says he carefully screens his patients and follows all regulations. He has been an outspoken critic of efforts to limit opioid prescribing and recently appeared on a Las Vegas TV station saying the federal government doesn't care if pain patients suffer and die.

“I understand what (DEA is) after. They figure if they go after the big guy, then no one will prescribe,” Tennant told PNN. “If they’re going to hurt me, no doctor is going to be willing to prescribe or do anything. That’s what they’re attempting to do. They’re attempting to neutralize me if they can. And I think there needs to be an outcry.

"The time has come. Is this country going to treat pain patients or not? Are they going to let people die in pain or are they not?"

Ironically, the raid on Tennant’s offices and home occurred the day after he testified in Montana as a defense witness in the trial of another doctor accused of negligent homicide in the overdoses of two patients. The Tennants arrived home Tuesday night to find the front door to their home had been kicked in by DEA investigators.

“It seems like a coincidence, doesn’t it?” Tennant said.

Insys Payments

Tennant acknowledges getting about $126,000 from Insys Therapeutics, payments that were primarily for speaking at events sponsored by the company.