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Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune Dean Zabriskie(left) appears with his client, Joseph Berg, (right) for his sentencing hearing, in the 4th District Court, in Provo, Monday April 23, 2012. Berg, a plastic surgeon who pleaded guilty to kidnapping, drug and weapons charges for an episode where he kidnapped his girlfriend.

Rick Egan

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Coroners carry a body from the Orem home where embattled plastic surgeon Dr. Joseph Berg and an unidentified woman were found dead Monday, August 27, 2012. MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald

Mark Johnston

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A medical examiner leaves the Orem home where embattled plastic surgeon Dr. Joseph Berg and an unidentified woman were found dead Monday, August 27, 2012. MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald

Mark Johnston

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OREM — Police have ruled the August deaths of former Orem plastic surgeon Joseph Berg and his girlfriend, 49-year-old Luz Schwartz, were accidental.

Orem police Sgt. Craig Martinez said the pair died of an accidental drug overdose.

“We had to wait on the state medical examiner’s report,” he said. “That along with our investigation was the basis of what we concluded.”

Initially the police indicated there was no obvious sign of trauma. The conclusion has not changed.

“That was the only conclusion we could come up with,” Martinez said. “We have no evidence pointing to anything else. The medical examiner’s report tells us why they died, about the medication they took. But we didn’t have evidence of a double suicide or a homicide-suicide. We would have had to look for a note or a text message for family members about severe depression or something like that to indicate other circumstances. There was none.”

The pair was found dead at 479 E. 1450 North on Aug. 27.

The two had had a difficult relationship at times. Berg, 47, pleaded guilty in December 2011 to kidnapping Schwartz; he was sentenced to 180 days in the Utah County Jail for that and two other felonies. He was arrested in November 2011 when officers responded to an abandoned 911 call. Police said he had tied Schwartz to a dresser with tape, stuffed a rag in her mouth and dragged her down the hall by her hair. Schwartz later testified for Berg, saying the incident was a misunderstanding.

Berg had gotten out of jail on Aug. 23. He was incarcerated for just less than four months. Prosecutor Craig Johnson told the Daily Herald at the time of his death that Berg got out early for good behavior. He said the deaths were a shocking turn of events.

Berg lost his licenses to practice medicine and prescribe narcotics in January 2012. The state Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing order determined he was not physically or mentally fit to practice. During a DOPL hearing in November 2011, allegations surfaced that Berg had been seen using drugs at his office, that he had passed out at work and that his entire staff quit en masse because they felt he had become dangerous.

The DOPL stipulation included an admission from Berg that he did in fact have a “severe and debilitating addiction to prescription drugs.”

A former patient had filed a civil lawsuit against him, alleging that he committed health care malpractice, battery and negligence during the follow-up visit for plastic surgery. Jennifer Swalberg alleged that Berg cut her open when she was not properly anesthetized, that he poked her with a pickle fork and left her in pain and disfigured. The documents also allege that the patient found Berg on the floor, eyes open and glazed, at one of her appointments.