Detectives went to Puliafitos home, but he declined to talk and referred them to a criminal defense attorney. The family of a woman who had a drug-fueled relationship with former USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito received $1.5 million to head off a lawsuit. By Susan Svrluga. Jail authorities recorded inmate calls, though getting incriminating information was generally a long shot, since every call included an automated warning that conversations were taped. At the end of June, Pringle wrote to the companys president of publishing and its chief legal counsel: This is to report actions by Davan Maharaj and Marc Duvoisin that I believe have harmed, and could further harm, The Times and the corporation. Jackie Lacey, who was in office at the time, said in a recent interview that she was unaware of the settlement agreement and the wiping of the images and other material. By jdubble07 @ 2017-07-17 15:55:08. [4], Puliafito was appointed dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC in December 2007. Eventually he emailed the Pasadena city attorney. Yoder gave birth last year to a second child, a girl, with Franko, according to birth records. Warren previously told The Times that the group smoked meth on that occasion. Dr. Puliafito resigned as dean last year not long after the woman, Sarah Warren, overdosed while the pair were at a Pasadena hotel. Investigators enlisted another pathologist to weigh in, and emails show that, as recently as May, one of the detectives sought to meet and discuss the case with the head coroner. Puliafito did NOT provide any methamphetamine to Dora Yoder nor was he using any, Reuben wrote. He initially said he had no firsthand knowledge of Yoders drug use but later acknowledged her previous heroin addiction. After Puliafito left the witness chair, Smith revealed the existence of the jail recordings that proved he was in close contact with Voigt and Franko and knew the female addicts. Puliafito spoke openly with the jailed men about illicit substances, associates who overdosed and young female addicts in their circle, a lawyer for the board told a judge at the hearing. Theirs was a curious relationship. Nevertheless, she disagreed with the decision not to prosecute Puliafito. No details of the agreement had been publicly disclosed until now. [7], In March 2016, Puliafito resigned as dean of the Keck School of Medicine, and USC professor Rohit Varma was appointed interim dean. He replaced Carmen A. Puliafito, who gave up his $1.1million-a-year dean's post in the middle of the 2016 spring term, saying he wanted to explore outside opportunities. Now, she's worried about getting sued. She told The Times that Puliafito had a daily drug habit for most of the roughly 20 months they were together. During its 2017 investigation of Puliafito, The Times obtained or reviewed many of the images in the Warrens possession. Ed Buck, who was indicted last year in connection with the overdose deaths of two Black men in his West Hollywood apartment, now faces four additional charges. John Manly, an Orange County attorney who negotiated an $852-million settlement with USC in the sex abuse case involving campus gynecologist George Tyndall, agreed. But Davis and Morse requested access to calls placed from jail to the cellphone numbers of Puliafito, Yoder and the babys father, Franko, anyway. Puliafito denied an ongoing relationship with Voigt and said he had never heard of the women. Societys trust in once-revered institutions has tumbled, and pressure has grown for media companies to provide greater transparency about how they do their work and their relationships with those they cover. Deputy Dist. There was conversation about the childs death, Davis said, declining to elaborate. Cloudflare Ray ID: 78bba401eaef915f They said that although they did not see evidence of foul play in reviewing the babys autopsy, they also did not see conclusive evidence of an accident and disagreed with the decision to classify the death that way. The report said that police had found methamphetamine in the room. USC has seen numerous scandals involving medical staff and faculty in recent years. Find Dr. Puliafito's address and more. The search for the truth plunged Dets. Former USC medical school Dean Carmen Puliafito, left, with Dora Yoder, her boyfriend and Sarah Warren in a Las Vegas hotel with drug paraphernalia scattered on a table. (Alex J. Berliner) On a November day in 2017, USC entered into a secret mediation agreement with the family of a young woman whose drug-fueled relationship with the former dean of the university's medical school had engulfed the institution in scandal. Nothing was said about the incident; he said he was resigning because he wished to "return to academic ophthalmology and pursue some identified opportunities in healthcare. Khan filled him in about the overdose and the unconscious woman and the famous man and the official inaction. So he decided to drop the matter. The family also agreed to share photos and videos of the group doing drugs together, according to the book. . In total, Puliafito was compensated more than $1.8 million when his base salary and bonus were factored in. Former L.A. coroners investigator Denise Bertone, a nurse who performed more than 2,000 pediatric death investigations, said she doubted whether Yoder was credible enough to inform the coroners determination. She and Lucas met. The Times newsroom lawyer had reviewed it. In one of the few studies, a review of eight newborns who died with the drug in their systems, the ones clearly due to meth were a little bit higher level than that of Boaz, Armenian said. Yoder had grown up Amish and did not have a college degree. For Dr. Carmen Puliafito and a group of younger people he befriended, life was a photo-op. Nothing., Maharaj denied the allegations and said the story was sent back for more reporting., I specifically said at the meeting that I was not killing the story and that Pringle needed to do more reporting and not rely so much on a heavily redacted police report, he said. My first instinct was to call 911, he said. Now Greek couple win big . Puliafito and his attorney said he had done nothing wrong. Pringle said yes. Duvoisin and Maharaj both dispute how the team was formed and that it worked even briefly without their knowledge. Puliafito did not know that the homicide detectives had been monitoring his jail calls or that Smith, the prosecutor cross-examining him, had copies of the recordings. The now-former dean of the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine routinely partied hard with a band of drug users which included a 21-year-old prostitute and a troubled karaoke deejay with a lengthy rap sheet. Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin and publisher and Editor-in-Chief Davan Maharaj were . Alan Jackson, a former prosecutor in the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, said that even if USC retained copies, it is unseemly for an institution to arrange for the destruction of the original material. 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Paul Pringle is a Los Angeles Times reporter who specializes in investigating corruption. Warren had told the newspaper that she met Puliafito in early 2015 and that they were constant companions for more than a year and a half. Duvoisin concurred: There was no time when I was not aware of it.. Former USC President C.L. Yoder told investigators that, the week before he died, the then-18-day-old infant reached his hand out of a baby wrap and touched a hot pan. The story was killed, according to the book. Experts in civil and criminal law said it can be risky to destroy original videos, photos and other material amid an ongoing inquiry, depending on the intent of those signing the agreement. The university let him continue treating students, An overdose, a young companion, drug-fueled parties: The secret life of a USC med school dean, The Times investigation of George Tyndall, former USC gynecologist accused of sexually abusing students. Yoder told the investigator that she asked Franko what to do because she didnt know CPR. He told her to use a mirror to check for breathing. What they found was shocking, infuriating and devastatingly sad, but in the end, only one thing mattered: Was it enough for criminal charges? Among the images The Times reviewed was a video of Puliafito inhaling from a large methamphetamine pipe. Four decades separated them. Rosenfeld PJ, Moshfegi AA, Puliafito CA. The Times eventually published a lengthy piece on USCs major ethical lapses. Our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct requires me to make this report.. As cynical as Ive been for a long time, it stunned me. The agreement was negotiated while L.A. County sheriffs detectives were investigating the October 2017 death of a newborn whose mother had a relationship with Puliafito. Bad City contends that the actions Duvoisin and Maharaj took to stymie the USC investigation went against the most basic tenets of journalism and tarnished the news organizations credibility at a time of rampant distrust of the media. . In this 2003 photograph, Dr. Carmen Puliafito is shown second from the right. None of that mattered. She declined to discuss the images or the other evidence. A photo in the LA Times shows a man in a dark suit and tie, a white shirt and a serious expression. It also reflects the challenges of the modern media landscape and the intense discussions surrounding the medias traditional role of holding the powerful accountable. Max Nikias says officials will "examine and address" a newspaper report that the Puliafito, who recently resigned as dean of the medical school, abused . and it's now reduced . Confidential payouts to settle legal disputes are common, but one provision of the Warren pact was not, according to legal experts: To receive the money, family members had to turn over to USC all of their videos and photographs showing Puliafito using illegal drugs to allow the university to destroy them, two sources with knowledge of the agreement told The Times. She and USC did not answer several written questions from The Times, including whether the university retained copies of the photos and videos or provided them to local, state or federal authorities. They found a map to that world in the County Jails pay phones. Thats when a young drug addict overdosed on crystal meth and GHB in a Pasadena hotel room while partying with Dr. Carmen Puliafito, dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine. Recently, the Los Angeles Times broke a story that Dr. Puliafito, former Dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, had been abusing drugs and keeping company with a group of younger individuals who engaged in drug use and illicit activity. Carmen A. Puliafito (seen in 2014) resigned from his $1.1-million-a-year job in March 2016 after Sarah Warren overdosed in a hotel room with him in Pasadena three weeks earlier There's no question it was a slog getting the Puliafito story published. Since joining the paper in 2008, she has written about high-profile people, including Phil Spector, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, and institutions, including USC, the Catholic Church, the Kabbalah Centre and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. The USC Keck School of Medicine, left, and the former Los Angeles Times building in downtown. I just want to confirm that Dr. Lucas is in agreement with my cause and manner of death as this case has media interest and I can foresee it landing in a Los Angeles newspaper, Szymanski wrote in an email. (2005). Her babys father, who was suspected of procuring drugs for her, among other offenses, received a sentence of 18 years. Three days before publication, the book said, he deleted all but one reference to Puliafito supplying drugs to others. On a November day in 2017, USC entered into a secret mediation agreement with the family of a young woman whose drug-fueled relationship with the former dean of the universitys medical school had engulfed the institution in scandal. Szymanski, who now works at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, declined to discuss her work. Sarah Warren had told The Times that she witnessed Puliafito giving Yoder meth numerous times in 2015 and 2016, before Yoder was pregnant. It should be unethical for a lawyer to do this.. Yoder did not respond to interview requests. When she spoke with the coroners investigator at the scene, Yoder did not mention contacting a man in Pasadena for help, according to the investigators report. A board spokesman declined to comment and did not answer questions about the images its investigators obtained or whether they knew about the agreement that allowed USC to destroy the images on the Warrens devices. The deal, which forbids the Warrens from ever publicly discussing it or their dealings with Puliafito and USC, was struck as the #MeToo movement took hold across the country and highlighted criticism of financial settlements that silenced victims of sexual abuse and harassment. Paul Pringle. Gen. Rebecca Smith asked. Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito boosted the medical school's ranking as its dean and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, becoming one of the highest-profile figures at a university packed with star . Federal grand juries in L.A., for example, indicted three men last year on charges of providing the drugs that killed rapper Mac Miller and charged activist Ed Buck in two overdose deaths. Max Nikias, who was in office at the time and Amirs boss, knew nothing about the destruction of the images and other material, his attorney said in an email to The Times. As an eye doctor, he diagnoses and treats diseases, injuries, or trauma of the eye such as glaucoma or cataracts. Click to reveal The downside to secrecy is its effect on others, said Zitrin, who echoed Manlys point about the possibility of more victims coming forward. In that period, Puliafito talked three times to Franko, who was himself in and out of jail on drug-related charges, according to the testimony. He attended the State University of New York Plattsburgh but discontinued his studies to join the Navy in 1967. She did not respond to interview requests. Yang declined to comment. Hatami wrote in a June 23 memo: After a thorough investigation and consultation with medical experts there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim died as a result of a crime by either suspect., No one appears to have informed Puliafito, Yoder or her family about the decision not to prosecute. In the morning both suspects discovered that the victim had died. Shes a known drug user, right? Deputy Atty. But several days before it was supposed to run, according to the book, Duvoisin emailed Pringle that Maharaj, the papers top editor, needed to think on it overnight and will meet with us in the morning., At the meeting, according to Bad City, Maharaj said, We are not going to publish this story., His reasoning, Pringle wrote, was that the paper could not prove conclusively that Nikias removed Puliafito because of the overdose. Two months after the infants death, a toxicology screen detected methamphetamine. Max Nikias, then president of USC, and gave two women there a full report. UC Hastings law professor Richard Zitrin had helped draft legislation limiting the use of gag orders and other types of secrecy in legal settlements. That put a blinding spotlight on USC President Max Nikias. The death of a newborn named Boaz Yoder in an Altadena apartment seemed at first glance like a case of sudden infant death syndrome. There should be accountability for this, she said. A later report found that USC paid Puliafito $1.8 million after his termination. Because Puliafito is a public figure, Caplan said, he would have to prove Sampath wrote with actual . As they approached, the doctor spotted them and left, Davis said. The inquiry focused on whether Puliafito gave the mother methamphetamine that was passed on to the baby in breast milk. (Patrick Fallon / For The Times; Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times). From 2007 until March 2016, he was dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC.. Dr. Carmen Puliafito is an ophthalmologist in Palm Beach Gardens. At its heart, it is the story of a whistleblower and a newsroom trying to do the right thing against great odds. There are a lot of unanswered questions about this death, said Dr. James Ribe, a specialist in pediatric autopsies who retired from the L.A. County coroners office in 2018. He cautioned that his opinion was based on the written report, not the photos of the injury. It could not be determined whether the medical board acquired all of the images that were covered by the agreement and subsequently wiped from the Warrens devices. "[8], Immediately following the publication of the 2017 Los Angeles Times report, USC announced that Puliafito had been placed "on leave from his roles at USC, including seeing patients. She did not refer Puliafito for prosecution, but he did not get his medical license back. Dr Carmen . Pringle's new book, "Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels," recounts his pursuit of a story about Carmen Puliafito, a former dean of the University of Southern California's medical . She is a graduate of Columbia University. Warren got clean later that year and cut ties with Puliafito. The sources said the negotiations by lawyers for the Warrens, USC and Puliafito also took place around the time law enforcement was looking into Puliafitos drug use and whether he provided drugs to others. Debra Wong Yang and her firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Because physical evidence of asphyxiation is often absent, it is common to rely on circumstantial evidence, including witness accounts, to arrive at a conclusion. In the end, the coroners office stuck with its findings. In "Bad City," Times investigative reporter Paul Pringle who led the paper's efforts to scrutinize Puliafito and USC dissects how the university and several of The Times' top editors, now no longer at the paper, allegedly fell from grace together. "On behalf of the Board of Directors and management team, we are delighted to welcome Dr. Carmen Puliafito to Ophthotech," stated Samir Patel, MD, President and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Ophthotech. For Dr. Carmen Puliafito and a group of younger . The Medical Board of California on Friday ordered USC's former medical school dean Dr. Carmen Puliafito stripped of his license to practice medicine, citing "an appalling lack of judgment . His drug use continued even after Warren overdosed in his presence in a Pasadena hotel room and he was forced from his deans post in March 2016. Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito is a Ophthalmologist in Miami, FL. , she disagreed with the decision not to prosecute Puliafito an ongoing relationship with Voigt said. 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