It seemed ripped from the script of a “Breaking Bad” episode, but the case of Stephen W. Doran — a math and English tutor diagnosed with stage 3 cancer who now stands accused of trafficking crystal meth — is all too real.

“This isn’t a television show. This is serious business,” Suffolk district attorney spokesman Jake Wark said, referring to the hit AMC series in which a high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with stage 3 cancer turns to dealing crystal meth.

A lawyer for Doran, a former Democratic state representative from 1980 to 1994 who once chaired the Legislature’s Ethics Committee, told a judge at Doran’s West Roxbury District Court arraignment yesterday that his client has been receiving chemotherapy for the past 11 months.

“His life is on the line here literally. This is a man who is being treated for stage 3 cancer at Mass. General Hospital,” attorney Vincent Murray said of Doran, 57, of Dorchester, who was arrested as he left the Match Charter Middle School in Jamaica Plain with what police said was an express parcel containing 480 grams of crystal meth.

Murray was appealing to the judge to release Doran on $10,000 cash bail — not the half-million-dollar bail a prosecutor has requested — saying he was no flight risk and would return to court.

Doran pleaded not guilty to charges of trafficking methamphetamine over 200 grams and trafficking a controlled substance within a school zone.

Police searching his Dix Street home later found another 38 grams of crystal meth, $10,000 cash and drug paraphernalia, said Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Rakhi Lahiri, who asked for the high bail because Doran faces a minimum mandatory of 12 years in prison if convicted.

In setting Doran’s bail at $10,000, Judge Michael Coyne ordered him to be fitted with an ankle bracelet and confined to his home except for medical appointments.