Preview Newsletter
Dr. Puliafito Coverage Morning 7/26
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At a Moment of Success, U.S.C. Is Rocked by Scandal
Jul 25, 2017 | The New York Times
By Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina
When the University of Southern California lured a world-class ophthalmologist to run its medical school 10 years ago, it was part of a long, concerted effort to transform U.S.C.’s image from a school primarily for the children of this city’s wealthy, mostly white, elite with a penchant for partying and football into a major academic research institution. -
Yet another USC scandal requires blunt talk about money culture and values on campus
Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
By Steve Lopez
I don’t want to make too much of the fact that the word “scandal” begins with SC, but the current midsummer drama at the University of Southern California is certainly not the first in recent years. -
Pasadena officer who investigated overdose was skeptical of USC med school dean's story, recording shows
Jul 25, 2017 | LA Times
By Adam Elmahrek, Paul Pringle, Sarah Parvini and Matt Hamilton
The police officer who last year questioned the then-dean of USC’s medical school about his role in the drug overdose of a young woman expressed skepticism at Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s account, according to an audio recording that was made by the officer and released Tuesday. AUDIO LINK: https://soundcloud.com/latimes/police-hospital-interview-recording-march-4-2016edited2 -
City Releases Police Report, Audios of Overdose Call Which Led to USC Med School Dean's Downfall
Jul 25, 2017 | Pasadena Now
The City of Pasadena has released copies of the incident report, the property seizure report, a dispatch timeline and two recordings of police interviews — one with Dr. Carmen Puliafito at Huntington Memorial Hospital and another with hotel staff — regarding the March 4, 2016 drug overdose of a woman at a Pasadena hotel which ultimately led to Puliafito’s resignation as the Dean of USC’s Keck School of Medicine. -
Documents, Recordings Released Related to Former USC Medical School Dean Scandal
Jul 26, 2017 | NBC Los Angeles
By City News Service
Pasadena's city manager Tuesday authorized the release of police interview recordings that officials say show former USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito did not try to influence a police officer regarding his investigation into a woman's hotel room drug overdose. -
Officer Doesn't Buy USC Dean's Overdose Story In Police Recording
Jul 26, 2017 | Pasadena Patch
By Paige Austin
Pasadena City officials released police reports and interview recordings Tuesday from the night last year when police were called because an alleged prostitute overdosed in a Pasadena hotel room with then USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito -
Fame, reputation and a med school dean’s secret life
Jul 26, 2017 | JDSUPRA
By Patrick Malone & Associates
Although smaller community hospitals may provide treatments that are as good and as safe, Americans flock to academic medical centers for specialized care and complex procedures. They’re lured to the big, pricey institutions by their stellar reputations, state-of-the-art facilities, and top-line specialists. These tall, shiny complexes, combining medical education, research and clinical care, also have deep roots in their communities and become political powerhouses in their own right. -
KABC (ABC): Eyewitness News at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Jul 25, 2017 | KABC (ABC)
we are learning new details about the growing scandal involving the former dean of the usc keck school of medicine. a recent l.a. times investigation found dr. carmen puliafito quote kept company with a circle of criminals and drugs users, who said he used methamphetamine and other drugs with them... VIDEO LINK: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/28453883?token=58ed9e22-e03d-47b8-9967-c18b25872ae1
Traditional Media Coverage
Broadcast Coverage
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At a Moment of Success, U.S.C. Is Rocked by Scandal
Jul 25, 2017 | The New York Times
By Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina
When the University of Southern California lured a world-class ophthalmologist to run its medical school 10 years ago, it was part of a long, concerted effort to transform U.S.C.’s image from a school primarily for the children of this city’s wealthy, mostly white, elite with a penchant for partying and football into a major academic research institution.
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 faculty and supported by big donors.
Around Los Angeles, Dr. Puliafito garnered attention as a kind of bon vivant at glittery parties, grinning for the camera alongside celebrities like Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short and Jay Leno while bringing in as much as $9 million in a single night. But last week, this city was abuzz when a different side of the dean came to light after a scandalous report in The Los Angeles Times detailed how he associated with criminals and used drugs on campus, with some escapades captured in videos.
Now the university is under intense scrutiny over the circumstances of Dr. Puliafito’s exit from the school’s leadership and whether the administration deliberately turned a blind eye to problems with a prodigious fund-raiser.
The unwanted attention is rippling beyond the campus to Pasadena, a suburb with long and deep ties to U.S.C. When a police officer responded to a call at a Pasadena hotel where a woman had apparently overdosed in front of Dr. Puliafito, the officer found methamphetamines in the room, but he did not file a report for months. There were no criminal charges. The Pasadena city manager said last week that the episode “reflected poorly” on the city and police department.
For decades, U.S.C. has inspired fierce loyalty from its closely knit alumni network, which refers to itself as the Trojan Family, in a nod to the university’s mascot. It has a powerful base of supporters from Hollywood, as well as business and technology elites, who are hesitant to find any fault with the school. Dozens of trustees, professors, donors and students who were contacted for this story declined to speak on the record.
“The community all feels this sense of shock and outrage,” said Dr. Steve Morrison, a medical school graduate teaching there part time. “What’s most upsetting is the sense that this was covered up for a very long time, that people knew about what was happening and nobody dealt with it.”
University officials announced late last week that they were moving to dismiss Dr. Puliafito and strip him of his tenure, after initially allowing him to remain on the faculty after the story was published. U.S.C. has retained a former federal prosecutor, Debra Wong Yang, to investigate the case and the university’s handling of it. After days of damaging disclosures, the university also hired a major crisis communications firm to guide it through a situation that many people here worry could damage its hard-earned reputation and undercut its fund-raising efforts, which could in turn put the president’s job at risk.
All of this has come at a time when this private research university — a field of handsome buildings, many made of red brick, lumbering across 300 acres just south of downtown Los Angeles — has emerged as a major economic, cultural and political power in the city. Earlier this year, C. L. Max Nikias, the university president, announced that U.S.C. had reached its goal of $6 billion in its latest fund-raising campaign, making it one of the top three universities in annual fund-raising, behind only Harvard and Stanford.
This can be seen in the bustle of construction across the university grounds, including, most recently, University Village, a $700 million housing and retail complex, the largest project in U.S.C.’s history. The university has plans to vastly expand its medical campus in Boyle Heights, an effort that will undoubtedly include an expansive fund-raising push. The university is the largest employer in Los Angeles County and draws broad support from across Southern California — with people sporting Trojan gear in every neighborhood from East Los Angeles to Brentwood.
“There was a time where it was thought of as a school for the socially prominent or upwardly mobile socially prominent people,” said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. “That has really been altered by their tremendous resources, recruitment of phenomenal faculty and a dramatic increase in their academic standards. It’s pretty remarkable. It’s one of the biggest transformations in California education.”
Supporters of the university, which has 44,000 undergraduate and graduate students, argued that the reputation it built over the past 20 years as it moved into the upper echelons of American higher education would allow it to survive the upheaval.
“It’s unfortunate that, in every profession, we find individuals who suffer from addiction,” Eli Broad, one of the city’s leading philanthropists and a major donor, said in a statement. “No matter the actions of one person, U.S.C. is a world-class university.”
Still, many people here found the details of the scandal — and suggestions that the university failed to aggressively intervene — highly unsettling. The news report described photos of Dr. Puliafito lighting a glass pipe for a female companion smoking heroin. A young woman who had been partying with the dean at a hotel in Pasadena in March 2016 was sent to a hospital after overdosing; methamphetamine was found in the room. The Los Angeles Times said that 10 days after that, university officials were tipped off to the overdose. On Tuesday, Charles Sipkins, a university spokesman, said that the president’s office had received an anonymous call about the episode, but that it never reached a senior administrator.
Dr. Puliafito resigned as dean about a week later, saying he wanted to pursue outside opportunities, but he remained on the faculty, continued to see patients and was honored at a reception on the lawn of the medical campus that June. “Carmen’s proven business expertise meshed perfectly with his superb medical skills,” Dr. Nikias said at the time. “He brought a new generation of exceptional clinical leaders, department chairs and world-class talent to our campuses.”
Only now, after the exposé, did the university move to dismiss him entirely.
By every measure, the case is far from over. Ms. Yang has just started her investigation. There are concerns that Dr. Nikias, 64, the university president since 2010, can be forced to step aside if U.S.C. is found to have ignored damning information about Dr. Puliafito. The videotapes mentioned in the Los Angeles Times article, including one in which Dr. Puliafito is said to be seen popping an orange ecstasy tablet, according to the newspaper, could end up leaking as the investigation continues, providing graphic evidence of behavior that so far has only been described.
The university’s efforts to recast its reputation — it was commonly referred to as the University of Spoiled Children — began under Dr. Nikias’s predecessor, Steven B. Sample, who served as president for 19 years. He began fund-raising aggressively so the school could build extensively, recruit (some critics preferred the word “raid”) top-notch faculty members and researchers from other universities and help pay for scholarships to attract more minority students.
“I don’t think it’s going to materially affect the school,” said Dr. David Warburton, a professor of pediatrics at the medical school. “Having said that, this is not good for morale in the short term.”
While much of the focus was on biomedicine, the university also expanded its media and political offerings, which served to raise its profile even more. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor, opened the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy there. The George Lucas Family Foundation began a $20 million endowment to support black and Latino students at the university’s film school. The music moguls Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre gave $70 million to create a degree that combines business, marketing, design and liberal arts.
This year, the university received a record 56,000 applications and has a 16 percent acceptance rate, compared with 23 percent in 2011, reflecting the increasingly competitive environment. The number of instruction faculty jumped to 3,455 from 3,123 during the same period.
“It’s a pretty popular school with our kids,” said Ed Graf, director of college counseling at Isidore Newman School, an independent school in New Orleans. “Twenty-five years ago, most of our kids would have gotten into U.S.C. Nowadays, it’s risen up the ranks in competitiveness a lot.”
He added: “To be honest, this kind of scandal, as horrifying as it is in some ways, you hear things like this almost every day in the news. They get so many applications now, 60,000 or something, I don’t think it would have any impact at all.”
Terrence Jao, a third-year medical student, praised Dr. Puliafito even as he expressed shock at his behavior and worry about what it might mean for the school.
“It’s a disappointment — someone you thought you would respect, he has a whole other side to him,” Mr. Jao said. “He’s had a huge impact, but I feel like the scandal will take away a lot of that.”
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Yet another USC scandal requires blunt talk about money culture and values on campus
Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
By Steve Lopez
I don’t want to make too much of the fact that the word “scandal” begins with SC, but the current midsummer drama at the University of Southern California is certainly not the first in recent years.
The administration’s disastrous handling of former medical school dean Carmen Puliafito, who remained on the faculty after reports of drug use with criminals and addicts, drew this observation from a USC physician who asked that I not reveal his name:
“This reminds me of the Steve Sarkisian fiasco.”
That’s a reference to the former Trojan football coach, who was dumped in 2015 after a loss to his former school, the University of Washington.
Either USC didn’t do its homework before hiring Sarkisian in 2013, or it did, but ignored its own findings. Once at the helm in L.A., Sarkisian was kept on the job despite slurring words, denigrating an opponent and using foul language at a booster event. He later skipped practice and was placed on leave and eventually fired after an L.A. Times investigation about his alcohol use in his previous coaching job.
The SC athletic director at the time, former Trojan quarterback Pat Haden, was second-guessed by some for his handling of the Sarkisian affair. And The Times reported that while raking in $2.5 million annually at SC, Haden made about a half million dollars a yearfor seven corporate boards and charitable foundations, despite acknowledging he put in “very little” time in those roles. Haden resigned last year with quite a few achievements but a mixed legacy.
Haden, by the way, had been hired in 2010 to restore USC’s badly tarnished athletic reputation. The NCAA had just dropped a hammer on the school for violations involving gifts and benefits given by agents to star football player Reggie Bush and basketball player O.J. Mayo. In the NCAA crackdown, which followed an investigation begun in 2006, the NCAA cited USC’s “lack of institutional control.”
Throughout this storm of dark clouds, there’s been a constant at USC. Dating back to the NCAA investigation, all the way up through Puliafito, C.L. Max Nikias was a central figure in the institutional control of USC. I don’t know the extent of his involvement in each controversy, and my requests for interviews have not been granted. But Nikias was USC provost from 2005 until 2010, and he’s been president ever since.
Nikias, by some measures, has been a huge success at USC, raising the profile of an already-elite school and achieving his goal of raising a staggering $6 billion in donations. The money is being used to pad the school’s endowment fund, erect new buildings and research centers, and pump up the financial aid pool.
But you have to wonder if the price of success is too steep.
Puliafito was a prolific fundraiser and talent recruiter himself, which is enough to raise suspicion about how the renowned eye surgeon stayed on the job — as teacher and doctor — more than a year after he stepped down as dean in the wake of an incident in a Pasadena hotel where a female companion overdosed in Puliafito’s presence and had to be hospitalized.
A Times investigation — by Paul Pringle, Harriet Ryan, Adam Elmahrek, Matt Hamilton and Sarah Parvini — turned up solid evidence of Puliafito partying on several occasions with a circle of criminals and drug addicts in hotels, apartments and even the dean’s USC office.
Like I said in my column last week, as disturbing as that is, I’m more disturbed by the non-actions of Nikias and Provost Michael Quick, who were asked by Times reporters numerous times over the last 15 months to discuss Puliafito. At one point, reporters were turned away from Nikias’ office and told the president would not be discussing this matter.
Given his mummy act, we don’t know what Nikias knew.
We don’t know if he read the emails from The Times, one of which included a link to a 911 call about the woman who overdosed in the hotel room. We don’t know if he got word of an anonymous complaint to his staff about Puliafito.
If Nikias was in the dark, despite repeated requests for an interview about a troubling matter involving a high-profile doctor who was still seeing patients, that doesn’t speak well for his judgment or leadership.
In any case, USC employees, students and alums are owed answers, not a series of carefully massaged statements.
Four days after the story broke last week, Provost Quick said the university had seen “extremely troubling” information about Puliafito and it was “the first time we saw such information firsthand.” Nikias released a statement saying he was “outraged and disgusted.”
Not since Capt. Renault in “Casablanca” has anyone been so shocked, shocked, shocked by what’s going on right under their noses.
Nikias said last week that the university has to examine “ways in which we could have recognized the severity of the situation sooner.”
I’ve got two tips on that:
First, open your eyes.
Second, think about something other than money, prestige and football championships.
Now, of course, Nikias and company are dead serious about getting to the bottom of the Puliafito matter. So serious that they have hired a former prosecutor to investigate.
Lovely, except that the lawyer is a former USC teacher who later represented the university in a wrongful death suit. Her law firm’s managing partner is a USC grad and former chair of its board of councilors, and the firm was cited by USC for its fundraising efforts by former Trojans.
More than one reader sent me a fox-in-the-henhouse email.
USC faculty members I’ve been in touch with are incensed that a doctor was allowed to take patients for more than a year after his drug-fueled behavior was reported to the university, and they’re not buying the administration’s claims of ignorance. They tell me the trust of faculty and students has been eroded.
One parent of a USC student said he was “appalled … by the lack of honesty and character and integrity within USC’s leadership team.” Another parent told me she wanted USC trustees to take a hard look at “the true values of the university.”
I asked one USC physician if he thought Nikias would keep his job.
“I hope not,” he said. “But money wins out.”
Get more of Steve Lopez's work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez
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Steve Lopez: USC bosses flunk the leadership test amid shocking allegations about former medical school dean
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Police union examines incident at Pasadena hotel involving a former USC dean after an officer is disciplined
Drug allegations involving former USC medical school dean are probed by Medical Board of California
Former USC medical school dean no longer seeing patients; Pasadena police discipline officerPrivacy PolicyCopyright © 2017, Los Angeles TimesColleges and Universities Education USC College Sports Steve Sarkisian
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Jul 25, 2017 | LA Times
By Adam Elmahrek, Paul Pringle, Sarah Parvini and Matt Hamilton
The police officer who last year questioned the then-dean of USC’s medical school about his role in the drug overdose of a young woman expressed skepticism at Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s account, according to an audio recording that was made by the officer and released Tuesday.
Puliafito told the officer he was at the Pasadena hotel room where the overdose occurred as a family friend to help the woman, who was later rushed to Huntington Memorial Hospital.
The unidentified officer is asked by a social worker at the hospital what he thought of the account offered by Puliafito.
“You buy it?” says the social worker on the recording that Pasadena police released in response to a California Public Records Act request by The Times.
“No,” the officer replies.
The social worker later laughs and says: “A friend of the father. Excuse me? That’s funny.”
The officer and social worker then speculated about Puliafito’s relationship with the woman and discussed the drugs and “provocative clothing” found at the scene.
Despite the officer’s doubts, a required report on the overdose at a Pasadena hotel was not filed until three months later, after The Times made repeated requests for information. No arrests were made.
In a statement Tuesday, Pasadena Police Chief Phillip L. Sanchez defended his department’s handling of the overdose, saying it lacked evidence to arrest Puliafito in connection with methamphetamine that officers found in the hotel room registered in his name. It remained unclear if the department followed up on its investigation after questioning Puliafito at the hospital.
The woman who overdosed, Sarah Warren, now 22, told The Times the police never interviewed her. About six hours after she overdosed, Warren said, Puliafito picked her up at the hospital and they returned to the hotel to resume using drugs.
Puliafito, 66, resigned as dean of the Keck School of Medicine three weeks after the overdose, saying he wanted to pursue opportunities in the biotech industry. His involvement in the incident was not publicly reported until The Times published an investigation last week that found Puliafito associated with a circle of younger criminals who said he abused drugs with them.
After he stepped down as dean, Puliafito remained on the USC faculty and continued to accept new patients, according to the school’s website.
The Pasadena police’s handling of Warren’s overdose and Puliafito’s involvement have been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism.
Last week, Pasadena City Manager Steve Mermell sent a memo to council members saying that The Times’ account of the hotel incident “reflects poorly on the city and the Pasadena Police Department.”
“As indicated in the article, initially there was no police report made of the incident,” Mermell said. “There should have been and that was a failure on the part of our responding officer. Once this came to light, [police] undertook an appropriate investigation and ultimately the involved officer was the subject of disciplinary action.”
It’s unclear whether the officer in the recording was disciplined.
On Friday, USC administrators announced that Puliafito had been suspended from the faculty and barred from seeing patients, and that the school had begun the process to fire him.
The Medical Board of California has said it is investigating Puliafito, based on The Times report.
The overdose occurred March 4, 2016, at the Hotel Constance on Colorado Boulevard. A hotel employee called 911 to report an apparent overdose. On the recording, Puliafito is heard identifying himself as a doctor and saying the woman was his girlfriend. He told the 911 dispatcher that the woman “had a bunch of drinks and she’s sleeping.”
Paramedics arrived at the hotel and took Warren to the hospital. The police officer met Puliafito at the hospital, where he interviewed the doctor.
On the police officer’s recording, Puliafito can be heard telling the officer that he’s a friend of Warren’s father.
When asked if he has a “romantic relationship” with Warren, Puliafito responds “no.”
Puliafito said he “thought she was sleeping, and she was breathing and you know, and hadn’t thrown up or anything.”
“You as a doctor, did you notice anything that would have alarmed you?” the officer asked.
Puliafito responded that he was an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon.
“So not an emergency medicine physician. I mean, I basically looked at her respirations, you know,” he said. “When I saw her at the beginning, she was responding to me.” Later, he said, Warren “didn’t seem to be waking up.”
A witness to the incident told The Times of phoning USC President C.L. Max Nikias’ office, giving two employees an anonymous account of the overdose and demanding that USC take action against Puliafito.
Phone records reviewed by The Times showed the witness made a six-minute call to Nikias’ office on March 14, 2016, 10 days after the overdose.
Last week, Puliafito’s successor as dean, Dr. Rohit Varma, told a gathering of scores of students that USC had found “no evidence, particularly, of that phone call.”
But on Tuesday, a crisis management specialist representing USC, Charles Sipkins, said that Nikias’ office did receive an anonymous call about Puliafito’s presence at the hotel overdose. However, the anonymous report did not make it to top university officials, Sipkins said.
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City Releases Police Report, Audios of Overdose Call Which Led to USC Med School Dean's Downfall
Jul 25, 2017 | Pasadena Now
The City of Pasadena has released copies of the incident report, the property seizure report, a dispatch timeline and two recordings of police interviews — one with Dr. Carmen Puliafito at Huntington Memorial Hospital and another with hotel staff — regarding the March 4, 2016 drug overdose of a woman at a Pasadena hotel which ultimately led to Puliafito’s resignation as the Dean of USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
City Manager Steve Mermell authorized the release of the documents and recordings.
· Click to see the Incident Report
· Click to see the Property Report
“Due to the public interest in this matter regarding Dr. Puliafito’s interaction with Pasadena police, the City is releasing these documents and the recordings,” City Manager Mermell said. “We want to assure the public that our officer responded and investigated the incident. The recordings clearly show no one, including Dr. Puliafito, attempted to influence the officer or have him dismiss the incident in any way.”
The audio recordings are being publicly released for the first time today, July 25, 2017, less than one week after a copy of the recordings was first provided to the City Manager on July 19, 2017. Previously, redacted copies of the written reports were released to the news media under the California Public Records Act that permits redactions as part of the process prior to release. The Pasadena Police Department continues to review its records for additional information that can be released regarding this incident.
The documents and recordings reveal details of the Pasadena Police Department’s response to the medical aid/overdose call of March 4, 2016. The officer went first to the hospital where the overdose victim was transported by Pasadena Fire Department paramedics and then he went to the local hotel where the incident was reported to have occurred.
Police Chief Phillip L. Sanchez said there are four important factors that explain why no arrests or citations were made, including:
• Police usually do not arrest victims who are hospitalized for overdosing on drugs or alcohol; nor do they automatically arrest or cite people who report an overdose or who are at the hospital with an overdose victim.
• There was, and still is, no evidence in the possession of the Pasadena Police Department that Dr. Puliafito committed a crime the night of March 4, 2016 in Pasadena.
• The 1.16 grams of methamphetamine found inside an unoccupied hotel room were not in anyone’s physical possession, limiting any value as possible evidence for prosecution.
• There was no way to determine how many visitors, registered guests or hotel staff had access to the room that night, nor how many people had gone in and out of the room prior to the arrival of police.
“The officer filled out a property report that night,” Sanchez said, “and he preserved the evidence and documented the confiscation of methamphetamine in a timely manner. The officer also conducted and recorded an interview of Dr. Puliafito, correctly preserving his statement and ultimately writing a report on June 8, 2016. We do recognize that the incident report was not written in a timely manner in conjunction with the property report.”
Sanchez noted the Pasadena Police Department regularly makes arrests and/or issues misdemeanor citations for even small quantities of illegal drugs, including methamphetamines. In those cases, the officers had either found the persons to be in direct physical possession of the drugs or they were able to show a link between the persons and the drugs sufficient enough to support an arrest or citation, he said.
“Had officers arrived at a drug party where possession and consumption of illegal narcotics was clearly visible, or if this had been a fatal overdose, the law enforcement response would have been very different,” said Sanchez.
Both City Manager Mermell and Chief Sanchez continue to review the incident. As appropriate, further announcements will be made and responses to public record requests will be posted to the website.
Chief Sanchez added that “every day, we strive to ensure our service always meets the highest standards possible, I stand firm in assisting City Manager Mermell in a thorough review of this situation because we always need to learn where our performance can be improved.”
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Documents, Recordings Released Related to Former USC Medical School Dean Scandal
Jul 26, 2017 | NBC Los Angeles
By City News Service
Pasadena's city manager Tuesday authorized the release of police interview recordings that officials say show former USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito did not try to influence a police officer regarding his investigation into a woman's hotel room drug overdose.
USC has begun the process to terminate Puliafito and strip him of his faculty tenure because of alleged substance abuse activities.
Released Tuesday along with the audio recordings of police interviews with Puliafito and hotel staff after the March 4, 2016, overdose were the incident and property seizure reports.
"Due to the intense public interest in this matter regarding Dr. Puliafito's interaction with Pasadena police, the city is releasing these documents and the recordings,'' according to a statement from Pasadena City Manager Steve Mermel.
"We want to assure the public that our officer responded and investigated the incident. The recordings clearly show no one, including Dr. Puliafito, attempted to influence the officer or have him dismiss the incident in any way."
Redacted copies of the written reports had been previously released to news media under a public records request.
"The Pasadena Police Department continues to review its records for additional information that can be released regarding this incident," according to a city statement that said, "There was and still is no evidence in the possession of (police) that Dr. Puliafito committed a crime the night of March 4, 2016.
Although 1.16 grams of methamphetamine were found inside an unoccupied hotel room, the substance was "not in anyone's physical possession, limiting any value as possible evidence for prosecution," according to the city, which cited statements by Police Chief Phillip Sanchez.
"The officer filled out a property report that night and he preserved the evidence and documented the confiscation of methamphetamine in a timely manner," Sanchez stated.
"The officer also conducted and recorded an interview of Dr. Puliafito, correctly preserving his statement and ultimately writing a report on June 8, 2016. We do recognize that the incident report was not written in a timely manner in conjunction with the property report."
No reason was given for the delay.
Puliafito is under immediate suspension from the university, barred from its campuses and any association with USC, including attending or participating in university events, Michael W. Quick, the university's provost and senior vice president for academic affair wrote in a memo to faculty members.
"We certainly understand that substance abuse is a tragic and devastating disease,'' Quick wrote. "But we are also bound to our responsibilities as a university to take the necessary actions concerning Dr. Puliafito's status."
USC President C.L. Max Nikias has announced that former federal prosecutor Debra Wong Yang has been hired to look into recent allegations by the Los Angeles Times that Puliafito abused hard drugs and associated with criminals and drug users.
Puliafito, 66, a renowned eye surgeon, led the Keck School of Medicine for almost a decade before resigning in 2016. He remained on the Keck faculty and continued to represent the university at public events as recently as this summer.
The Times published an article reporting that during his tenure as dean, Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and addicts who said he used drugs with them.
The paper also reported that Puliafito was with a prostitute when she overdosed on drugs at the Pasadena hotel room and had to be rushed to a hospital.
The same day as the report, USC said Puliafito was no longer seeing patients and was on leave. Puliafito resigned his $1.1 million-a-year dean's post in March 2016, saying he wanted to explore outside opportunities.
Yang is a former U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, a former state judge and a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission. She currently is a partner in the international law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Nikias said Yang will investigate the details of Puliafito's conduct, the university's response, as well as its existing policies and procedures and make findings and recommendations to the USC Board of Trustees Executive Committee.
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Officer Doesn't Buy USC Dean's Overdose Story In Police Recording
Jul 26, 2017 | Pasadena Patch
By Paige Austin
Pasadena City officials released police reports and interview recordings Tuesday from the night last year when police were called because an alleged prostitute overdosed in a Pasadena hotel room with then USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito.
Under fire for waiting three months until after Los Angeles Times reporters began asking questions to file a report about the incident, Pasadena officials say the recordings show former USC medical school dean Carmen Puliafito did not try to influence a police officer regarding his investigation into the woman's hotel room drug overdose. However Puliafito did tell the investigating officer a story about being a helpful family friend of the young woman, a claim both the officer and hospital social worker found laughable, according to the recording.
On the defense for the police department's handling of the case, Pasadena city officials took the unusual step of issuing a statement explaining outcome of the investigation.
“Due to the public interest in this matter regarding Dr. Puliafito’s interaction with Pasadena police, the City is releasing these documents and the recordings,” City Manager Mermell said. “We want to assure the public that our officer responded and investigated the incident. The recordings clearly show no one , including Dr. Puliafito, attempted to influence the officer or have him dismiss the incident in any way.”
According to city officials, "There was, and still is, no evidence in the possession of the Pasadena Police Department that Dr. Puliafito committed a crime the night of March 4, 2016 in Pasadena. The 1.16 grams of methamphetamine found inside an unoccupied hotel room were not in anyone’s physical possession, limiting any value as possible evidence for prosecution."
In the audio of the police questioning of Puliafito at the hospital the night the 21-year-old woman overdosed, the doctor claims he is a friend of the girl's father and that he got her a hotel room while she was in-between living situations. He denied having a sexual relationship with the woman nor being aware of her drug use that day.
However, according to the Los Angeles Times, the woman claimed she had a longstanding sexual relationship with Puliafito, and she showed reporters videos of the pair doing drugs together at the hotel before the overdose and again shortly after she was released from the hospital.
The investigating officer didn't find Puliafito's version of events believable, according to the audio recording.
“You buy it?” a social worker asks him on the recording.
"No," the officer replies.
"An old family friend," scoffs the social worker. "And a friend of the father? Excuse me," she laughs.
USC has begun the process to terminate Puliafito and strip him of his faculty tenure because of alleged substance abuse activities.
Released Tuesday along with the audio recordings of police interviews with Puliafito and hotel staff after the March 4, 2016, overdose were the incident and property seizure reports.
Redacted copies of the written reports had been previously released to news media under a public records request.
Police Chief Phillip Sanchez defended the investigation
"The officer filled out a property report that night and he preserved the evidence and documented the confiscation of methamphetamine in a timely manner," Sanchez stated.
"The officer also conducted and recorded an interview of Dr. Puliafito, correctly preserving his statement and ultimately writing a report on June 8, 2016. We do recognize that the incident report was not written in a timely manner in conjunction with the property report."
No reason was given for the delay.
Puliafito is under immediate suspension from the university, barred from its campuses and any association with USC, including attending or participating in university events, Michael W. Quick, the university's provost and senior vice president for academic affair wrote in a memo to faculty members.
"We certainly understand that substance abuse is a tragic and devastating disease," Quick wrote. "But we are also bound to our responsibilities as a university to take the necessary actions concerning Dr. Puliafito's status."
USC President C.L. Max Nikias has announced that former federal prosecutor Debra Wong Yang has been hired to look into recent allegations by the Los Angeles Times that Puliafito abused hard drugs and associated with criminals and drug users.
Puliafito, 66, a renowned eye surgeon, led the Keck School of Medicine for almost a decade before resigning in 2016. He remained on the Keck faculty and continued to represent the university at public events as recently as this summer.
The Times published an article reporting that during his tenure as dean, Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and addicts who said he used drugs with them. The same day as the report, USC said Puliafito was no longer seeing patients and was on leave. Puliafito resigned his $1.1 million-a-year dean's post in March 2016, saying he wanted to explore outside opportunities.
Yang is a former U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, a former state judge and a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission. She currently is a partner in the international law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Nikias said Yang will investigate the details of Puliafito's conduct, the university's response, as well as its existing policies and procedures and make findings and recommendations to the USC Board of Trustees Executive Committee.
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Fame, reputation and a med school dean’s secret life
Jul 26, 2017 | JDSUPRA
By Patrick Malone & Associates
Although smaller community hospitals may provide treatments that are as good and as safe, Americans flock to academic medical centers for specialized care and complex procedures. They’re lured to the big, pricey institutions by their stellar reputations, state-of-the-art facilities, and top-line specialists. These tall, shiny complexes, combining medical education, research and clinical care, also have deep roots in their communities and become political powerhouses in their own right.
Which is why many in the nation’s No. 2 city are abuzz over a Los Angeles Times investigation into the “secret life” of Carmen A. Puliafito, a Harvard-trained eye expert. Until 18 months ago, he had served for a decade as the $1 million-a-year dean of the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. As Keck’s top doc, the paper says, he “oversaw hundreds of medical students, thousands of professors and clinicians, and research grants totaling more than $200 million … [and] was a key fundraiser for USC, bringing in more than $1 billion in donations, by his estimation.”
The university—which is Los Angeles County’s largest employer, a haven for affluent offspring of West Coast elites, and long has craved global recognition—hired and backed Puliafito to boost the medical school’s standing. But during his tenure, the Los Angeles Times found, Puliafito also “kept company with a circle of criminals and drug users who said he used methamphetamine and other drugs with them.” As the paper describes it:
Puliafito, 66, and these much younger acquaintances captured their exploits in photos and videos. The Times reviewed dozens of the images. Shot in 2015 and 2016, they show Puliafito and the others partying in hotel rooms, cars, apartments and the dean’s office at USC. In one video, a tuxedo-clad Puliafito displays an orange pill on his tongue and says into the camera, ‘Thought I’d take an ecstasy before the ball.’ Then he swallows the pill. In another, Puliafito uses a butane torch to heat a large glass pipe outfitted for methamphetamine use. He inhales and then unleashes a thick plume of white smoke. Seated next to him on a sofa, a young woman smokes heroin from a piece of heated foil.
The newspaper also found that the doctor had prescribed medications for his young pals, including asthma inhalers for those who complained of breathing problems due to their smoking of marijuana and other intoxicants.
Leaders slow to respond
As the fury grows on campus over the former dean’s shenanigans, the university has reacted haltingly and poorly to this public black eye, made worse because Puliafito—who had stepped down as dean to join a high-tech medical products startup that did not succeed—had stayed on the med school faculty. Though he has gone on leave and isn’t doing so now, he was still accepting and supposedly treating patients (the paper has made clear that it has found no indication that his extracurriculars affected his medical treatment and his pristine practice record). Moreover, he was still representing the medical school, a critical part of a giant health system that is growing by leaps and bounds across Southern California as hospitals consolidate to seek economic efficiencies of scale.
Days after the newspaper published its tip-based scoop, USC’s president wrote to the university community, saying he was limited in what he could say about the former dean due to employment and medical privacy issues. He said substance abuse is a recognized problem for doctors and high-powered professionals, and USC and Keck offer programs to assist. He would not say if USC had complained to medical regulators about its former dean. But the Medical Board of California, which licenses doctors in the Golden State, has said it has opened a confidential investigation that it cannot discuss further into Puliafito.
Police in Pasadena also announced that they had disciplined an officer who had investigated a drug overdose in an upscale hotel room where Puliafito was staying and involving one of his young female friends, who since has gone into rehab. Officials declined to provide specifics but the Los Angeles Times noted that police seized illicit substances during a cursory investigation of the overdose, and officers could have charged individuals in the hotel room with their possession.
How much will this case tarnish USC, its medical school, or its health system? Hard to tell but this case gives a glimpse into the high-stakes practices in institution building. Puliafito was a reputation master, moving from posts in Boston and Miami to one of the West Coast’s elite perches in academic medicine. He pulled USC’s med school rankings up by at least a half dozen spots, experts say, recruiting more than 70 professors—and engaging in a still unresolved major legal fight with the University of California at San Diego over a prized Alzheimer’s researcher with a grants portfolio in the hundreds of millions. The Los Angeles Times also has published photos of the dean chumming it up with celebrities like Jay Leno, Warren Beatty, Annette Benning, and Shirley MacLaine, as well as Southern California civic leaders and politicians, and executives like onetime Hollywood studio chief Brad Grey and tech mogul Larry Ellison.
Research suggests that academic medical centers can help patients with intensive and specialized needs, often due to factors such as the complexity and volume of cases they treat. But their costs can be higher—and hefty.
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KABC (ABC): Eyewitness News at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Jul 25, 2017 | KABC (ABC)
we are learning new details about the growing scandal involving the former dean of the usc keck school of medicine. a recent l.a. times investigation found dr. carmen puliafito quote kept company with a circle of criminals and drugs users, who said he used methamphetamine and other drugs with them. end quote. we are now learning more about an incident that unfolded at a posh pasadena hotel last year involving dr. puliafito. my colleague michelle tuzee has more on the new revelations tonight. michelle: pasadena police were called to a room at the hotel constance in march of last year. that's where they discovered 21-year-old sarah ann warren, incoherent and in distress., they also discovered evidence of drug use. 2:08 AMand officers interviewed a man, dr. carmen puliafito, who was paying for the hotel room and claimed he was a concerned friend of the woman's family. many of his interactions with police that day were recorded. dr. carmen puliafito is the former head of the prestigious keck school of medicine at usc. a renowned opthalmologist and once a key university fundraiser. but according to an l.a. times investigation, he was also a drug user. on march 4, last year pasadena police recieved a 911 call concerning an unresponsive woman at the hotel constance. at one point the 911 operator talked to dr. carmen puliafito, who was in the woman's hotel room. >> my girlfriend here had a bunch of drinks. >> is she breathing right now? >> yes, she's absolutely breathing. absolutely breathing. >> is she vomiting at all? >> no, she was sitting up in bed, pesto. i mean i'm a doctor actually. michelle: a responding officer also talked to dr. carmen puliafito at length at the hospital where the woman was taken for treatment. that conversation was also recorded. >> she just got out of rehab three weeks ago. >> you as a doctor, did you notice anything that would have alarmed you? to the state that she is in now, i would say if you were a doctor you would have. >> i'm an opthalmologist. i'm an eye surgeon. not an emergency medicine physician. >> how do you know her? >> family friend. a friend of her dad. >> you are a friend of her dad? >> do you guys have a romantic relationship between each other? >> no. >> just friends? >> just friends. michelle: pasadena police made no arrests following the hotel incident. usc says it has hired an international law firm to conduct a thorough investigation into the details of dr. puliafito's conduct, and how the university has responded.
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