LAS VEGAS (AP) — A once-prominent Las Vegas physician who was convicted of murder and 26 other charges in a 2007 hepatitis outbreak has died in prison custody.
Nevada corrections spokeswoman Brooke Keast said Tuesday that Dipak Desai died late Monday at a Reno hospital. He was 67.
Desai was convicted in July 2013 of charges also including neglect of patients and insurance fraud.
He had been serving 18-years-to-life in a prison medical facility in Carson City.
Desai's lawyers maintained for years that he was in such poor health after several strokes he was unfit for trial.
Prosecutors blamed the deaths of two patients on hepatitis C contracted during outpatient procedures at Desai's endoscopy clinic.
Health investigators linked at least nine and as many as 114 other cases of the incurable liver disease to Desai clinics.
