A 54-year-old Honolulu physician was sentenced yesterday to one year and one day in prison and fined $10,000 for dispensing the powerful pain medication oxycodone "outside the course of professional medical practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose."

Dr. Kachun Clement Yeung will begin serving his sentence Oct. 11. The federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Yeung will serve his sentence. U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor also ordered Yeung to be placed on three years supervisory release upon completion of the prison term.

Yeung pleaded guilty to selling 20-milligram tablets of oxycodone to undercover drug agents on two occasions in June 2002. Yeung delivered a total of 110 tablets to agents and was paid $800. The exchanges took place in the parking lot of Panya Bakery on Auahi Street on June 14 and The Queen's Medical Center parking garage a week later.

Yeung was initially charged with 30 counts of illegally prescribing medications and 19 counts of welfare fraud before reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

According to papers filed by federal prosecutors in the case, the investigation of Yeung began after 11 patients who were being prescribed medications by him died of drug overdoses here between August 2000 and August 2002.

The government never alleged that Yeung was responsible for those deaths but filed the paperwork to refute allegations from Yeung's attorney that drug agents were unfairly targeting physicians specializing in "pain management."