Preview Newsletter
Puliafito Morning (7/27)
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USC president admits university 'could have done better' in handling reports of medical school dean's drug use
Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
By Matt Hamilton, Paul Pringle and Sarah Parvini
USC President C.L. Max Nikias acknowledged Wednesday that the university “could have done better” in its handling of a former medical school dean who a Times investigation found took drugs and associated with criminals and drug abusers. -
About that scandal: what took so long, USC? (Letters to the Editor)
Jul 27, 2017 | LA Times
To the editor: As someone who holds three degrees from USC, I believe that the board of trustees must step in immediately to gain control of the spreading scandal regarding the university's handling of the Puliafito affair. (Re: “What did USC know about dean, and when?" July 23) -
Pasadena officer questions Dr. Carmen Puliafito after woman's overdose (AUDIO)
Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
AUDIO LINK: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/94190583-132.html The police officer who last year questioned the then-dean of USC’s medical school at a hospital about his role in the drug overdose of a young woman expressed skepticism at Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s account. -
Documents, Recordings Released Related to Former USC Medical School Dean Scandal
Jul 26, 2017 | NBC Los Angeles
By City News Service
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. -
Pasadena explains why officers did not make arrests after overdosed woman found in USC dean’s hotel room
Jul 26, 2017 | San Gabriel Tribune
By Jason Henry
Concerned about accusations of a cover-up, the Pasadena Police Department released witness interviews, investigative records and a detailed timeline of an officer’s investigation in to an overdose last year involving the former dean of USC’s medical school. -
USC President Acknowledges Missteps Surrounding Dean's Alleged Drug Abuse
Jul 27, 2017 | Los Angeles Patch
By Patch Staff
USC President C.L. Max Nikias said Wednesday he was "saddened and upset" about recent revelations regarding the activities of former medical school dean Carmen Puliafito, and acknowledged that the university "could have done better" in handling the situation. -
USC to form task force in response to former Keck dean scandal
Jul 26, 2017 | Daily Trojan
By Emma Peplow and Allen Pham
USC will form a task force led by Provost Michael Quick and Senior Vice President of Administration Todd Dickey to address how to better investigate and confront employee misconduct, President C. L. Max Nikias wrote in a letter to the USC community on Wednesday. -
The ‘Pasadena’ Connection
Jul 26, 2017 | Monrovia Weekly
By Terry Miller
USC’s Dean of Keck Medical School Carmen Puliafito has garnered international headlines for a while now regarding an incident in a Pasadena hotel last March that has all the makings for a major melodramatic motion picture, soon to be at a theater near you.
Traditional Media Coverage
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Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
By Matt Hamilton, Paul Pringle and Sarah Parvini
USC President C.L. Max Nikias acknowledged Wednesday that the university “could have done better” in its handling of a former medical school dean who a Times investigation found took drugs and associated with criminals and drug abusers.
Nikias didn’t detail how the university could have done more but said USC currently has “only loosely defined procedures and guidelines for dealing with employee behavior outside the workplace.” He announced a new committee that would look at strengthening those procedures.
His comments marked the first time USC has conceded that it could have taken more decisive action to address the dean’s behavior more than a year ago. Nikias and his administration have been under growing pressure from faculty and students to explain why they didn’t act sooner.
On Wednesday, USC’s board of trustees made its first public statement on the issue, saying it was confident that Nikias and his team would work to “put in place policies and procedures to prevent something like this from happening again.”
It came a day after USC acknowledged that it received a call in March 2016 from a witness reporting that Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito had been found in a Pasadena hotel room with a young woman who overdosed on drugs.
Ann Fromholz, a Pasadena-based lawyer who has conducted hundreds of workplace investigations, said universities and corporations typically have procedures in place for dealing with complaints.
“People call the head of the organization. Sometimes it’s the only person they know to call; sometimes they feel frustrated they haven’t gotten answers from someone else,” Fromholz said. “There are invariably procedures in a CEO or president’s office to handle calls exactly like this, and it gets triaged to the appropriate department, whether it is human resources, legal or public safety.”
The witness told The Times of phoning 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. The tipster did not expect a call back but had told the USC employees the media would be alerted if action wasn’t taken, the person said.
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 Tuesday evening, 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 senior administrators, Sipkins said.
The witness told The Times of initially speaking to a woman who answered calls to Nikias’ office, giving her a brief account of what occurred at the Hotel Constance in Pasadena and asking to speak to a person in authority. According to the witness, the call was transferred to a second woman, who was given a detailed account of the overdose and Puliafito’s involvement.
In a letter to the campus community released Wednesday afternoon, Nikias said that “presently, the university has very limited capacity to conduct investigations and follow up on leads or anonymous reports of such employee behavior.”
It remains unclear when top USC administrators first learned about the allegations involving Puliafito or whether it took any action against him before The Times investigation was published July 17.
But The Times made repeated inquiries over the last 15 months about Puliafito, in some cases describing information reporters had gathered about the dean.
USC’s leaders never responded to the inquiries. Numerous phone calls were not returned, emails went unanswered and a letter seeking an interview with Nikias to discuss Puliafito was returned to The Times by courier, unopened. The courier also delivered a letter of complaint from Brenda Maceo, USC’s vice president for public relations and marketing, who said the reporter had “crossed the line” by visiting the Nikias home to deliver the letter.
The Times report last week described in detail how Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and drug addicts and used methamphetamine and other drugs while serving as dean of the Keck School of Medicine. The article cited photos and videos reviewed by The Times that showed Puliafito and his friends, who were in their 20s and 30s, partying in 2015 and 2016.
The images include some in which Puliafito’s companions are seen holding drug paraphernalia during an after-hours visit to the dean’s office at USC.
One member of Puliafito’s circle was a 21-year-old woman who overdosed in his presence at the Pasadena hotel three weeks before he abruptly quit as dean in March 2016, in the middle of the spring term.
USC has not said whether the incident was related to Puliafito’s resignation.
After stepping down as dean, the Harvard-educated Puliafito, a renowned eye surgeon, remained on the Keck faculty, continued to accept new patients and represented the university in public as recently this month.
Nikias’ comments come amid anger and questions directed at USC over Puliafito’s behavior and how the university handled it.
The day The Times investigation was published, Nikias said in a letter to the campus community that USC would “examine and address” the accounts but also suggested the school had not determined whether they were true.
By last Friday, Nikias released a more strongly worded statement, saying “we are outraged and disgusted by this individual’s behavior.” The same day, officials announced it hired a former federal prosecutor who works for a law firm with close ties to USC to investigate the affair. Moreover, they said Puliafito had been barred from the campus and from “any association with USC.”
The president announced that USC Provost Michael Quick and senior vice president for administration Todd Dickey would form a task force to address how the university could improve the way it handles these types of incidents. He said the task force would discuss how to improve communication between various parts of the organization and a better way to track and investigate anonymous complaints, as well as better training and services for those with mental health and other issues.
“While we are processing our feelings, whether that is regret, outrage, disgust, or sympathy, I want to make clear that the unfortunate actions of one individual in no way reflect the broader actions of the university and our thousands of faculty members and employees,” Nikias wrote.
John Mork, the chairman of the USC board of trustees, released a statement expressing confidence in Nikias and Quick to deal with “this challenging time.”
“These individuals have a long and highly-respected track record guiding USC to excellence with vision and integrity,” Mork wrote. “As Chairman, I am certain they will work quickly and decisively to make all necessary changes and will put in place policies and procedures to prevent something like this from happening again.”
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About that scandal: what took so long, USC? (Letters to the Editor)
Jul 27, 2017 | LA Times
To the editor: As someone who holds three degrees from USC, I believe that the board of trustees must step in immediately to gain control of the spreading scandal regarding the university's handling of the Puliafito affair. (Re: “What did USC know about dean, and when?" July 23)
Appoint an investigator independent of USC who will report and reporting to the board to determine who knew what and when. And create a code of ethics that USC's upper level managers must follow.
Nowhere to date have I heard such a code mentioned in the Puliafito affair.
Eddie Dawes, Hacienda Heights
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To the editor: Isn’t it shocking that at no time did anyone at USC appear to notice anything odd or unusual about Carmen Puliafito's behavior, and that credible evidence of his drug use was ignored, putting students and patients at risk.
I think USC was acting just like the Republican Congress both by its actions and inactions, and by basically insinuating that calls from The Times were "fake news.".
Jayne Gordon, Santa Monica
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To the editor: While it is absurd and insulting that USC essentially covered up — or at the very least, did not act upon — what it they knew or suspected about Puliafito a year ago, it is even more absurd that it has they have hired an attorney (along with her firm) with close ties to USC. Does anyone actually believe this can be an unbiased investigation?
Holly Cantos, Los Angeles
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To the editor: There remains an intriguing question in the case of Puliafito, who ran USC's Keck School of Medicine. He is a noted eye surgeon, a first-class researcher and a prodigious fundraiser.
With such an overloaded -plate in his day job, where did this man find the energy and stamina to allegedly spend his nights doing drugs — and perhaps other activities — with young women and men one-third his age?
If Puliafito could share the formula for such an achievement, he would make a real contribution to medical science.
Tom Tugend, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: Shame on The Times for its editorial crucifixion of Puliafito, and shame on USC for denying one of its own. Both The Times and USC have often stated that addiction is a disease, and should be treated as such.
Associating with criminals is a consequence of this disease, and for The Times and USC to paint it as a character flaw is hypocrisy.
Puliafito has been a compassionate physician and a benefactor of Keck and Los Angeles. He deserves compassion and treatment, not holier-than-thou condemnation.
Rachel and David Todd, San Marino
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To the editor: As a USC alumna, I am outraged at the handling of the Puliafito affair.
As a private citizen, I am not surprised, because money, power and greed seem to be the norm for all aspects of our society. They acted no differently than the Catholic Church with pedophile priests, or Enron, or Volkswagen.
Honesty is at the heart of the matter. From the very beginning, this was handled very badly.
The end result is that it has damaged the fine reputation of the university, and hiring a lawyer to investigate is not going to undo all the harm done. The Keck School of Medicine is an excellent medical institution and this PR crisis should not deter patients from seeing their medical professionals.
Joan Kerr, Torrance
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To the editor: Your reporting feels smeary, destructive and breathlessly sensational.
This man was obviously able to do his job, benefit the university and did not engage in bad behavior with other students or faculty members.
So why are you trying to destroy him and his family and play big man on campus?
I enjoyed it much more when you reported on the solar eclipse.
Karin Howard, Los Angeles
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Pasadena officer questions Dr. Carmen Puliafito after woman's overdose (AUDIO)
Jul 26, 2017 | LA Times
AUDIO LINK: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/94190583-132.html
The police officer who last year questioned the then-dean of USC’s medical school at a hospital about his role in the drug overdose of a young woman expressed skepticism at Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s account.
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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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Jul 26, 2017 | San Gabriel Tribune
By Jason Henry
Concerned about accusations of a cover-up, the Pasadena Police Department released witness interviews, investigative records and a detailed timeline of an officer’s investigation in to an overdose last year involving the former dean of USC’s medical school.
The Pasadena officer was disciplined when it was discovered he did not write a report about the incident.
The rare release of investigative details provides insight into why no one was charged and includes a recorded interview with the former dean, Dr. Carmen Puliafito, hours after a woman overdosed on methamphetamines in a room registered in his name.
“We want to ensure the public that our officer responded and investigated the incident,” said City Manager Steve Mermell in a statement. “The recordings show no one, including Dr. Puliafito, attempted to influence the officer or have him dismiss the incident in anyway.”
The officer, identified as A. Garcia in the police report, first went to the hospital to interview Puliafito, then to the hotel, where about 1 gram of methamphetamines was discovered by hotel staff.
No one was charged because police do not arrest overdose victims, nor do they typically arrest people who are at the hospital with them, according to Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez.
No one was in the hotel room when the drugs were found and no evidence suggested Puliafito committed any crimes, Sanchez noted.
Police could not determine how many visitors or employees had access to the room throughout the night. They also did not know how many people had gone in and out of the room prior to police arriving.
“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,” Sanchez said in a statement.
Garcia took the methamphetamines into evidence and listed the woman who overdosed as the owner in a property report. But he didn’t write up anything about that night’s incident until three months later, following repeated requests from the Los Angeles Times.
The Times published a year-long investigation into Puliafito’s alleged double life last week.
Pasadena disciplined Garcia for failing to write-up an incident report, but officials would not provide any details about the type of discipline because of a state law preventing disclosure.
Garcia is still employed by the department.
Both Sanchez and Mermell said their review of the incident is ongoing.
OFFICER DIDN’T BELIEVE PULIAFITO’S STORY
In the recordings, Garcia was immediately skeptical of the now 66-year-old Puliafito’s claim that he was just a family friend of the 22-year-old woman.
Puliafito, who lives in Pasadena with his wife, told the officer he arrived at the hotel to find the woman unconscious and believed she had drank too much. He said he rented her the room because she had a falling out with her roommate.
The renowned eye surgeon and USC fundraiser said he checked her breathing, but that his background was in ophthalmology, not emergency medicine.
Neither the officer nor a social worker assisting on the case believed his explanation.
“You buy it?” asks the social worker as they walk away from Puliafito following an interview.
“No,” the officer replies.
“A friend of the father. Excuse me?” the social worker said.
Garcia and the social worker later speculate about the relationship between Puliafito and the woman. A third unidentified person in the conversation asks if the woman who overdosed was a “working girl.” As they continue talking, they note there was “provocative clothing” found in the room.
The officer says the woman is “probably somebody that [Puliafito] buys drugs” from, and notes that the hotel room likely costs between $1,000 and $2,000 a night.
“It’s sad,” he said.
The woman who overdosed told the Times she met Puliafito while working as a call girl in 2015. She, and other friends, provided LA Times reporters with photo and video showing Puliafito taking ecstasy and smoking meth.
She said she had been partying with Puliafito for two days before her overdose and allegedly they went back to partying once she got out of the hospital.
Puliafito quietly resigned from his position as dean threes weeks after the overdose, saying he wanted to take a position at a biotech firm. He continued to associate with the university.
USC has reportedly cut ties with him in the wake of the scandal.
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USC President Acknowledges Missteps Surrounding Dean's Alleged Drug Abuse
Jul 27, 2017 | Los Angeles Patch
By Patch Staff
USC President C.L. Max Nikias said Wednesday he was "saddened and upset" about recent revelations regarding the activities of former medical school dean Carmen Puliafito, and acknowledged that the university "could have done better" in handling the situation.
"It is my responsibility to ensure the trust and well-being of our Trojan family, and I take that responsibility very seriously," Nikias wrote in a letter to the USC community. "I feel badly for all the people directly impacted by this situation. And I feel badly for all the faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents, friends and supporters of this great university who work tirelessly every day to advance knowledge, educate students, care for patients and serve the community.
As we move forward, their safety and best interests guide my actions," he wrote.
USC has begun the process to terminate Puliafito and strip him of his faculty tenure because of alleged substance abuse activities.
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 Los Angeles Times reported 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 a Pasadena hotel room and had to be rushed to a hospital.
The same day as The Times 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.
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 affairs wrote in a memo to faculty members.
Nikias previously announced that former federal prosecutor Debra Wong Yang has been hired to look into the allegations.
In his letter on Wednesday, Nikias stressed that "the unfortunate actions of one individual in no way reflect the broader actions of the university and our thousands of faculty members and employees.
That said, we could have done better," he wrote. "In facing other crises, we always found opportunities to learn and ways to improve, and then emerged stronger. Dr. Puliafito's situation is extraordinarily complex, but we should assume we cold have done better to recognize the signs and severity of his issues."
Nikias said the university is creating a task force to study how it can improve its policies for dealing with employees' behavior "outside the workplace that may be improper or illegal," and for conducting investigations into such actions and "follow up on leads or anonymous reports of such employee behavior."
"We must move forward with resolve and urgency, and we must move quickly to establish the task force and begin our process of learning from the past," he said.
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USC to form task force in response to former Keck dean scandal
Jul 26, 2017 | Daily Trojan
By Emma Peplow and Allen Pham
USC will form a task force led by Provost Michael Quick and Senior Vice President of Administration Todd Dickey to address how to better investigate and confront employee misconduct, President C. L. Max Nikias wrote in a letter to the USC community on Wednesday.
This comes following last week’s Los Angeles Times report detailing the misconduct of former Keck School of Medicine dean Carmen Puliafito, which included drug use, partying and association with criminals.
“As a result of this recent incident, it is clear to us now that the University currently has only loosely defined procedures and guidelines for dealing with employee behavior outside the workplace that may be improper or illegal and has the capacity to affect USC,” Nikias said.
Also in the letter, Nikias admitted that the University could have done better in investigating and responding to the matter.
“In facing other crises, we always found opportunities to learn and ways to improve, and then emerged stronger,” he said. “Dr. Puliafito’s situation is extraordinarily complex, but we should assume we could have done better to recognize the signs and severity of his issues.”
In a statement released on Friday announcing that USC has begun the processes necessary to terminate Puliafito and strip him of his tenure, Provost Michael Quick alluded to new evidence reviewed by USC officials that led to the decision.
“This was the first time we saw such information first-hand,” Quick wrote.
The Times also reported that two employees in Nikias’ office received an anonymous tip detailing Puliafito’s involvement in a drug overdose incident that occurred in March 2016 — just 10 days prior to Puliafito’s resignation. In response, a spokesman for USC told The New York Times the tip never reached senior administrators.
On Sunday, the Times ran a follow-up story, claiming that they had approached the University with questions about Puliafito’s conduct for more than a year prior to going public with the story, but with no response.
It is unclear when senior administrators first became aware of Puliafito’s conduct, but it has been a question raised in the days following the LA Times investigation. In light of the incident, the University has faced scrutiny from students, parents and faculty for its seemingly slow response.
Though the University did not provide a comment in the initial Times report, USC has released a series of statements in the week since it was published announcing actions taken in response to the allegations.
In separate statements released by Quick and Nikias on Friday, it was announced that Puliafito has been barred from campus while the University begins termination proceedings, and also that an independent investigation has been launched into the incident by hired outside firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
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Jul 26, 2017 | Monrovia Weekly
By Terry Miller
USC’s Dean of Keck Medical School Carmen Puliafito has garnered international headlines for a while now regarding an incident in a Pasadena hotel last March that has all the makings for a major melodramatic motion picture, soon to be at a theater near you.
A young prostitute, wild parties complete with an ample supply of drugs, prescription and otherwise were the foundations of the Puliafito parties loosely disguised as fundraisers for the medical school.
In one fell-swoop, Puliafito was brought down and subsequently caused a scandal that rocked the prestigious school.
According to the NY Times, “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.”
In an effort to be transparent after numerous requests from multiple media outlets, the City of Pasadena has now released copies of that 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.
City Manager Steve Mermell authorized the release of the documents and recordings Tuesday.
Now USC 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,’ according to a report in the New York Times.
“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.”
The following is a summary of the timeline related to a patrol call for service on March 4, 2016.
– 03/04/2016, 17:09 hours: Pasadena Police Department (PPD) dispatch received a call from a hotel employee requesting medical services to 928 E. Colorado Blvd (DusitD2 Hotel Constance).
– 03/04/2016, 17:10 hours: Unit 2L55 was dispatched to a Pasadena Fire Department (PDF) Assist/ possible overdose call wherein PFD was already on scene. The employee reported an individual possibly overdosed on crystal methamphetamine.
– 03/04/2016, 17:17 hours: 2L55 broadcasted that he was conducting a traffic stop, interrupting his response to the hotel.
– 03/04/2016, 17:25 hours: 2L56 dispatched self to the overdose call at 928 E. Colorado Blvd. Dispatch advised 2L56 that PFD had already transported the patient to the hospital.
– 03/04/2016, 17:27 hours: Incident history noted status change to reflect 2L56 assigned call.
– 03/04/2016, 17:29 hours: 2L55 cancelled from the call due to 2L56’s assignment.
– 03/04/2016, 17:34 hours: 2L56 arrived at local area hospital.
– 03/04/2016, 17:34 – 18:06 hours: 2L56 conducted interviews with hospital medical staff, with PFD RA transporting unit, with witness Dr. Carmen Puliafito in hospital waiting room, and with hospital social worker.
– 03/04/20,16 18:06 hours : 2L56 broadcasted that he was enroute to 928 E. Colorado Blvd. to conduct follow-up.
– 03/04/2016, 18:17 hours: 2L56 arrived at hotel.
– 03/04/2016, 18:26 hours: On the police radio, 2L55 asked 2L56 to go to police frequency three (3). On frequency three (3) 2L56 asked 2L55 to respond to hotel to assist him with the call.
– 03/04/2016, 18:28 hours: 2L55 advised Dispatch that he is responding to the hotel to assist.
– 03/04/2016, 18:48 hours: 2L56 cleared the call verbalizing 10-98 with PFD assist and he requested a case number for a Found Property Report. The officer subsequently completed a Property & Evidence Report under case number 16003313 noting that 1.16 grams of methamphetamine was collected and booked into the PPD’s Property/Evidence Room. 2L55 also cleared the call.
– 06/08/2016, 0021 hours: Officer requested the incident history note modification to Overdose classification. PPD officer completed Overdose report.
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