A Colorado doctor who admitted to writing more than 7,000 medical-marijuana recommendations without actually seeing many of those patients is now facing criminal charges.

The Colorado Medical Board has also restricted the license of Dr. Lenny Sujdak. According to a stipulation that Sujdak signed in the disciplinary case against him, Sujdak certified 7,057 patients for the medical use of marijuana between April 2011 and April 2012.

However, between April 2011 and October 2011, Sujdak did not see “the majority” of the patients he signed certifications for. Instead, according to the stipulation, Sujdak pre-signed certification forms and delegated the patient evaluations to underlings. Under Colorado law, doctors must have “bona fide” relationship with patients to whom they recommend marijuana.

The stipulation, signed in May, puts Sujdak’s medical license on probation for five years and prohibits him from writing medical-marijuana recommendations during that time.

Now Sujdak and a former nurse, Debra Gady, are facing felony charges for forgery and attempting to influence a public servant. They appeared separately in court Monday in Adams County for hearings on their charges. The charges were first reported by KCNC Channel 4.

State records show that Gady has retired from nursing. According to a state letter of admonition filed against Gady in 2012, she improperly conducted medical-marijuana evaluations at the HempCon Convention in Denver in October 2011 and signed the recommendation forms with a physician’s signature.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold