California IN BRIEF : RIVERSIDE : Doctor Punished for Prescriptions

A physician who admitted over-prescribing drugs to a 67-year-old patient before her death in 1988 has been put on probation and temporarily banned from administering some medicines. Municipal Judge Janice McIntyre-Poe also ordered Dr. Peter M. Lewis, 65, to perform 160 hours of community service, to keep records of all controlled substances he prescribes and to let another physician monitor his prescriptions. Lewis pleaded guilty two months ago to over-prescribing drugs to Joan M. Culver, 67, wife of retired Riverside Press-Enterprise Co. President Arthur A. Culver. In a wrongful-death suit filed against Lewis, the Culver family accused him of prescribing 12,560 doses of medication, including phenobarbital, a sedative, during the two years before the woman’s death. Lewis faces a state licensing hearing in August.