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Puliafito (8/21 )

Traditional Media Coverage

USC dean drug scandal could take costly toll on school's legal battle with UC system
Aug 21, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Harriet Ryan

Six months after Dr. Carmen Puliafito stepped down as dean of USC’s medical school, he was called by the university to give sworn testimony as a witness in a lawsuit the institution was facing.
USC downplays fundraising efforts of ex-dean at center of drug scandal
Aug 18, 2017 | Los Angeles Times
By Paul Pringle, Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton and Sarah Parvini

USC on Friday moved to further distance itself from the former dean of its medical school at the center of a scandal, downplaying Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s much-touted performance as a fundraiser for the university.
The blessing and curse of fundraising for higher education
Aug 18, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Jeffrey J. Selinngo

Can you name the top three American universities that raised the most money last year?
USC challenging fundraising reputation of disgraced dean
Aug 19, 2017 | Associated Press

The University of Southern California is challenging the fundraising reputation of a once-lauded medical school dean who resigned and faces allegations that he used drugs and hobnobbed with criminals.
USC Downgrades Disgraced Dean's Fundraising Claims
Aug 18, 2017 | Los Angeles Patch (City News Service)
By Staff

USC said today that despite what was stated in news reports, disgraced former medical school dean Dr. Carmen Puliafito actually brought in about $12 million in donations during the past seven years -- not the $1 billion he apparently claimed last month.

Traditional Media Coverage

USC dean drug scandal could take costly toll on school's legal battle with UC system

Aug 21, 2017 | Los Angeles Times

By Harriet Ryan

Six months after Dr. Carmen Puliafito stepped down as dean of USC’s medical school, he was called by the university to give sworn testimony as a witness in a lawsuit the institution was facing.
It was a sensitive matter with hundreds of millions of dollars potentially at stake, and two attorneys for the university sat with him as he answered questions.
Almost immediately, the opposing lawyer hit on a topic that was a closely guarded secret at USC: The circumstances of Puliafito’s abrupt resignation in March 2016.
The former dean had a ready explanation, saying he had taken advantage of a “unique opportunity” at a biotech company. The response was succinct, matter-of-fact and, in light of recent revelations about his drug use and troubled tenure at USC, far from the whole story.
Of the many consequences of the Puliafito scandal for USC, few are as high-stakes as the possible effect on the court case that prompted his testimony last year.
Puliafito was expected to play a role in defending USC in the legal battle with the University of California over the defection of a star UC Alzheimer's disease researcher.
Puliafito helped woo the scientist and dozens of other prominent academics as part of a strategy by USC President C.L. Max Nikias to vault the university into the ranks of elite research institutions.
UC is seeking $185 million in damages along with a punitive award that could be several times that amount.
“With all that’s out there about him, he’s going to have a serious problem coming off as credible and being believed,” said Los Angeles attorney Brian Panish, a civil litigator who has represented clients in suits against both schools.
VIDEO LINK (Puliafito Deposition): http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/94375446-132.html
A Times investigation published last month revealed that Puliafito partied and used drugs with a circle of criminals and addicts while serving as dean. Puliafito engaged in this behavior during the period in 2015 in which he was recruiting the researcher, according to interviews with his associates and text messages they exchanged with him.
A UC spokeswoman said the school would not discuss its legal strategy “other than to say we are vigorously pursuing this case against USC.”
An attorney for USC said no decision had been made on whether to call Puliafito as a witness, but insisted the former dean’s testimony was not important to the university’s defense.
“He’s a bit player in this,” said attorney John Quinn.
In court filings earlier this year, lawyers for USC highlighted a portion of the dean’s testimony in arguing that the case should be dismissed.
Puliafito testified that the university wanted UC San Diego researcher Paul Aisen to join the faculty whether or not he brought along hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding, a rejection of UC’s claim that USC was motivated by money in recruiting the scientist.
Legal experts said that even if USC decides not to use Puliafito’s testimony, UC’s legal team could ask for copies of his personnel record and attempt to make an issue in court of his conduct. That would set up a fight between USC and UC over whether jurors should be told about the skeletons in Puliafito’s closet if the case went to trial.
“The trial judge would have to decide whether the prejudicial, inflammatory value is outweighed by the probative value,” said Manhattan Beach civil lawyer John Taylor, who has represented clients with legal claims against USC.
The judge, Taylor added, “might say, ‘Suppose he was out partying like a rock star? How does that make it more or less believable to a jury?’”
USC is anticipating that UC will try to make Puliafito’s drug use a line of attack.
“I believe that they would do anything they could to try to poison the well, including introducing the dean’s personal problems,” USC lawyer Quinn said, adding that he expected a judge to reject such attempts as irrelevant.
The case is on hold while USC appeals a U.S. district judge’s ruling that moved the suit from federal court to San Diego County Superior Court, where it was originally filed. No trial date has been set.
By the time Puliafito was scheduled to be questioned under oath, the case was in its second year and UC had brushed off entreaties by USC to settle the matter out of court. USC deputy general counsel Stacy Bratcher and other university lawyers met with the former dean three times to prepare him for the deposition, he later testified.
On the day of his testimony, Bratcher and another lawyer sat with him at a downtown law firm as he was questioned for about six hours, according to a transcript of the testimony. Portions of the transcript were redacted at the request of USC.
Puliafito said he had been deposed 20 times in his life, including in court cases where he was a medical expert. On a video recording of part of the deposition, he appears self-assured, offering short, precise responses and brushing aside many questions as hypothetical and difficult to answer.
A few minutes into his testimony, he was asked for “the circumstances of your ceasing to be dean of the medical school.” An attorney for USC’s outside law firm, Viola Trebicka, initially protested that the question was “overbroad” and “vague” — objections a judge would rule on a later date — and then directed him to “go ahead” and answer.
“I had a unique opportunity in the ophthalmic biotechnology industry, and I was able to continue my employment at USC on sabbatical and work for this biotech company,” he said.
The full story was more complicated. USC acknowledged after The Times’ report that the dean quit his post during a confrontation with the university provost about his behavior and job performance. That showdown capped years of complaints from faculty and staff about Puliafito’s drinking, temper and public humiliation of colleagues, according to interviews with former co-workers and written complaints to the administration.
He was not offered the biotech job at Ophthotech, a firm run by two longtime friends, until more than a month after he resigned, according to a company spokesman.
Quinn said he did not know whether lawyers for USC and Puliafito discussed how he would answer questions about his resignation before the deposition. He said that attorneys for his firm “would never sponsor false testimony. We would never knowingly permit a witness to lie.” In a statement, a USC spokesman said the university general counsel’s office, where Bratcher works, “would never encourage a witness to perjure himself.”
Experts said UC could ask a judge to reopen the deposition in light of the new information about Puliafito’s past conduct.
“I would get the personnel file and also question him about what happened. Maybe there is more that is not out there yet,” Panish said.
The court fight is being closely watched in academic circles. UC took the highly unusual step of suing its academic rival in 2015 after years of frustration over USC’s recruitment of faculty members who were the recipients of big research grants. These grants are an important income source for the state system.
These “transformative faculty,” as they are known at USC, have been key to President Nikias’ strategy for raising the university’s national reputation. Puliafito spearheaded the effort during his eight-year tenure as dean, recruiting more than 70 academics from the UC schools, Stanford, Harvard and other prestigious rivals.
After Puliafito helped woo away two well-funded UCLA neurology researchers in 2013, UC administrators were outraged, and complained to government regulators, according to court filings. It was not unusual for professors to move to other institutions, often with the first university cooperating in the transfer of grant funding to the new school. But in UC’s view, USC had acted beyond accepted norms by targeting academics based on grant funding and strategizing secretly with those researchers while they were still employed by UC about moving grants to USC. The schools reached a confidential settlement requiring USC to pay UCLA more than $2 million, according to a copy of the agreement obtained through a public records request.
Late the next year, the dean set his sights on another UC prize: Alzheimer’s expert Paul Aisen. The UC San Diego neurology professor was a global leader in the search for a cure for the disease, and federal agencies and drug companies were expected to send more than $340 million in research grants to the lab he ran over the next five years.
“I am going to get more involved in this personally and quarterback the process,” he wrote in an email to Provost Michael Quick in April 2015. “We need this to happen.”
USC offered Aisen annual compensation of $500,000 — a salary bump of $110,000 — along with a home loan and other perks. He moved to USC in June 2015.
The loss reverberated at the highest levels of the UC system. President Janet Napolitano unsuccessfully lobbied the head of drug company Eli Lilly, a major funder of Aisen’s work, to keep its grant money at UC.
In July 2015, UC sued USC, Aisen and his lab colleagues for breach of fiduciary duty, interference with contracts, computer crimes and other claims. The university said USC had conspired with the researcher while he was still working for UCSD to interfere with the public university’s contractual relationships with grant funders and to seize control of critical clinical trial data.
Subsequent filings suggested the depths of the hard feelings. In one, UC complained that the departing scientists had even made off with paper clips paid for by UCSD. In another, their lawyers described USC as a “predatory private university” with a “law-of-the-jungle mind-set.”
USC and Aisen countersued for defamation and other charges. Their lawyers wrote in the complaint that they were ready to settle the litigation and suggested the blame rested with UC for failing to fund Aisen’s work adequately. When he found a school that would, they wrote, UC engaged in “petty academic politics,” including trying to make him sign a loyalty oath and cutting off his email and phone service, tactics that they claimed endangered patient safety.
Aisen, Puliafito and other USC administrators insisted in depositions that the university had done nothing wrong. In his sworn testimony, the former dean testified that he was prepared to offer Aisen a faculty position even if his lucrative research grants stayed behind at UCSD.
“You were indifferent to whether or not the grant funding transferred with Dr. Aisen,” the UC lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Puliafito said, adding: “That’s the risk we were willing to take.”
San Francisco lawyer Stephen Hirschfeld, who has defended UC and other universities in civil suits, said the involvement of other officials in Aisen’s recruitment could blunt the impact of Puliafito’s credibility issues.
The university provost, a faculty chair, medical school administrators, and human resources officers played key roles in luring Aisen, according to court filings and deposition testimony.
“You could have a situation where the dean says one thing and several other administrators confirm that it is true,” Hirschfeld said. Focusing too much on Puliafito, he said, might make UC look cruel or desperate to the jury.
“You’ve got to think really hard if it’s worth it to attack this guy in this way,” he said.
Taylor, the Manhattan Beach lawyer, said that jurors could see Puliafito as a reflection “of the values of the university and the decision makers there.”
“If terrible evidence comes in about him, it is terrible evidence for the school,” he said.
The deposition offers tantalizing clues about the relationship between Puliafito and USC. At one point, the former dean was asked when he had last looked at the USC ethics code.
“Six months ago,” he replied. The deposition was on Sept. 23, 2016 — just a day short of the six-month anniversary of the meeting at which the provost confronted him with complaints from colleagues about his behavior.

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USC downplays fundraising efforts of ex-dean at center of drug scandal

Aug 18, 2017 | Los Angeles Times

By Paul Pringle, Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton and Sarah Parvini

USC on Friday moved to further distance itself from the former dean of its medical school at the center of a scandal, downplaying Dr. Carmen Puliafito’s much-touted performance as a fundraiser for the university.
USC’s senior vice president for university advancement said in a letter to alumni and supporters that assertions that Puliafito raised more than $1 billion while leading the Keck School of Medicine were overblown and that the physician was personally responsible for collecting barely 1% of that amount over the last seven years.
A Times investigation published last month reported that Puliafito, while Keck dean, associated with a circle of drug abusers and criminals who said he often used methamphetamine and other drugs with them. He served nearly a decade as dean before abruptly resigning in March 2016.
The letter from Albert Checcio said the credit for the $1.2 billion in gifts to Keck in the last seven years is shared by many people, including individual researchers, department chairs and physicians, as well as USC President C.L. Max Nikias.
“What these gifts illustrate is that fundraising at a multifaceted research university like USC is a collaborative effort, especially in medicine, where the relationships that donors build with all members of their health care team are paramount to philanthropic support,” Checcio wrote.
“No single individual is ever responsible for — or can take sole credit for — raising the money.”
Checcio and Puliafito did not respond to interview requests.
University leaders, including Nikias, previously praised Puliafito’s prowess with donors, going back to his arrival at USC. Introducing him to the campus in 2007, then-provost Nikias, who led the search committee that selected the dean, described him as “a fundraiser of singular quality.”
When Puliafito was up for reappointment in 2012, he listed fundraising as a key accomplishment, writing in a self-assessment that he had secured $500 million in contributions in his nearly five years as dean at that point. Nikias, who had become president, decided to keep Puliafito on for a second term over the objections of some faculty and staff, who expressed concerns about what they said was brusque behavior and excessive drinking.
In a letter that year announcing Puliafito’s reappointment, provost Elizabeth Garrett said the positive feedback the university had received about him included his “involvement in USC’s historic fundraising campaign.”
Evaluations of Puliafito noted “the increase in research funding during his tenure” as a “significant” achievement, Garrett wrote.
When a biotech company hired Puliafito last year, it said in a news release that the dean was responsible for “fundraising initiatives resulting in over $1 billion in gifts and pledges” for USC. The firm, Ophthotech Corp., later laid off Puliafito and scores of other employees after reporting poor results from a drug trial.
Throughout his years as dean, Puliafito was a public face of the school’s efforts to court donors. He co-hosted Westside galas that raised money for Keck, welcoming celebrity guests such as Jay Leno and Pierce Brosnan and praising the gathered philanthropists.
Photos of these events show Puliafito posing with big-name donors like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, the late Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey, and David and Dana Dornsife.
Puliafito stepped down as dean three weeks after a young woman suffered a drug overdose in his presence in a Pasadena hotel room. His involvement in the overdose was not publicly disclosed until The Times report on July 17.
A witness to the overdose told the newspaper of calling Nikias’ office in March 2016 to inform USC of Puliafito’s role in the incident at the Hotel Constance. After The Times investigation was published, USC administrators acknowledged having received the call, but said it was handled by two receptionists who did not pass on the witness’ account to their superiors because they did not find it credible.
Administrators also said they had received complaints from employees about Puliafito’s behavior, including two shortly before he resigned as dean. USC allowed Puliafito to remain on the Keck faculty and see patients. He also continued to represent the school at medicine-related events.
After the Times story, USC moved to fire Puliafito, forbid him to see patients and barred him from campus.
Much of Checcio’s letter Friday addressed USC’s recent successes in fundraising overall, including more than $794 million in gifts and pledges in the last fiscal year.
Laura Fredericks, a philanthropy consultant and lecturer at New York University, said it is highly unusual for a university to publicly dispute how much a key administrator raised.
Fredericks said fundraising is often a group effort.
"Having been in fundraising for 25-plus years, it’s very difficult for anyone to say who exactly raised X amount," she said. "We all know in fundraising, there's many people who put many balls in motion to raise gifts.”

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The blessing and curse of fundraising for higher education

Aug 18, 2017 | The Washington Post

By Jeffrey J. Selinngo

Can you name the top three American universities that raised the most money last year?
If Harvard topped your list, you’re right. The nation’s oldest institution of higher education raised $1.19 billion in the 2016 fiscal year. Perhaps some other Ivy League universities made your list, like Yale or Columbia, or that basketball juggernaut, Duke, or those Midwestern universities that seem to have tons of loyal alumni, like Notre Dame or Michigan.
You’d be wrong on all fronts. Number two on the list was Stanford University, which raised $951 million. And probably few people would have guessed number three: the University of Southern California. It raised $667 million, about as much as Northwestern and Princeton universities combined.
One of the prodigious fundraisers at USC was its medical school dean, Carmen Puliafito, who in his decade at the university was known for raising hundreds of millions of dollars as well as the school’s profile and rankings. But over the last month, Puliafito and his role at USC has come to resemble that of a Hollywood drama. In a series of stories, the Los Angeles Times reported how Puliafito partied with criminals and prostitutes and used drugs on campus. Some of the antics were caught on video.
Since then, the university’s senior leadership and its president, C.L. Max Nikias, have come under fire about whether they acted appropriately in dealing with Puliafito, with some wondering if officials overlooked problems with the dean because he was such a successful fundraiser. Nikias has acknowledged that officials “could have done better” in handling the situation.
On Friday, a senior vice president of USC, Albert R. Checcio, said in a letter to faculty, staff and alumni that Puliafito’s fund-raising role should not be overstated. He said Puliafito “was responsible for barely one percent” of $1.2 billion USC had raised for medicine over seven years.
Colleges That Raise the Most in Private Donations, 2016Harvard U. $1,187,530,292Stanford U. $951,149,098U. of Southern California $666,640,686Johns Hopkins U. $657,292,634U. of California at San Francisco $595,940,070
Source: Council for Aid to Education
That USC now ranks among the top fundraisers in higher ed has allowed the university to achieve a lofty status that three decades ago seemed unimaginable. In the 1990s, USC was struggling to overcome its reputation as a party school in a bad neighborhood, which was partly a result of the Los Angeles race riots that played out on national television.
After the riots, many parents worried about sending their daughters to south-central Los Angeles, and the number of women in the incoming freshman class dropped to 40 percent. Rather than run away from its location, USC unleashed a marketing campaign that played up its advantages, complete with photographs that set campus landmarks against a backdrop of skyscrapers.
USC’s efforts paid off, moving “the university geographically in the minds of people, without a moving van,” said Morton Schapiro, a former dean of letters, arts and sciences at USC and now president of Northwestern.
By 1999, Time magazine named USC its College of the Year. In the decades since the riots, the university’s endowment has quintupled, and its acceptance rate has plummeted from 70 percent to 16 percent as applications surged from 10,000 to now nearly 60,000. Earlier this year, Nikias announced that USC had reached its $6 billion goal in the university’s latest fund-raising campaign, way ahead of schedule. (Frederick J. Ryan Jr., publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, is a member of the USC board of trustees.)

Within higher education, USC has become a Cinderella story, met partly with awe but also some envy among presidents. Fundraising is now the most important part of the day-to-day job of a college president, according to a study this year on the presidency that I co-authored. The study was released by Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities and Deloitte’s Center for Higher Education Excellence. Despite its importance to their job, many presidents say they feel unprepared for the amount of fundraising they need to do on a regular basis.
So when leaders are good at it like they have been at USC, the race for dollars begins to permeate the culture. Raising more than a million dollars a day takes leaders away from campus and doesn’t allow them enough time to engage with faculty members and students and weave themselves into the fabric of the school they represent on a daily basis.
It also changes the stakeholders of the university. Donors, often alumni, become just as important as students and faculty in making decisions on campus. This has been particularly true for many of the big issues that grab headlines about colleges: drinking, fraternities and athletics. Several college leaders have told me that they are reluctant to place restrictions on any of them because they don’t want to offend alumni (read: donors) who like to recall the good old days of their youth when colleges weren’t so paternalistic. This is a problem especially for big public colleges and universities that increasingly depend more on alumni donations than they do state taxpayer dollars.
While raising more private money has allowed universities like USC to invest in new facilities, cutting-edge research, top-notch faculty, and scholarships for students, fundraising also has been a curse for higher education. It has made college leaders reluctant to take tough stances on campus or national issues and has turned the pursuit of money into a campus priority, sometimes at all costs.

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USC challenging fundraising reputation of disgraced dean

Aug 19, 2017 | Associated Press

The University of Southern California is challenging the fundraising reputation of a once-lauded medical school dean who resigned and faces allegations that he used drugs and hobnobbed with criminals.
Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito said he raised $1 billion for the Keck School of Medicine.
That assertion was challenged Friday in a school letter to "Friends of USC" from Senior Vice President Albert R. Checcio that laid out results of a USC fundraising campaign.
"Let me state the facts," Checcio wrote. "In the past seven years, Dr. Puliafito was responsible for barely one percent of the more than $1.2 billion that USC raised for medicine."
He added later: "No single individual is ever responsible for — or can take sole credit for — raising the money."
Puliafito, 66, is a renowned eye surgeon. He led the Keck School of Medicine for nearly a decade and was praised for raising funds and attracting talent.
He resigned in March 2016, saying he wanted to explore outside opportunities but remained on the faculty and represented USC at public events.
Last month, USC announced it would fire Puliafito and strip him of tenure after the Los Angeles Times reported that he kept company with a circle of criminals and drug users. The newspaper said it had videos of the dean apparently smoking methamphetamine and taking Ecstasy. Citing a police report, it also reported that Puliafito was present when a woman overdosed in a Pasadena hotel room only weeks before he resigned.
USC has hired a former federal prosecutor to investigate.
The Associated Press was unable to find a working telephone number on Friday for Puliafito, who has never commented publicly on the accusations.

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USC Downgrades Disgraced Dean's Fundraising Claims

Aug 18, 2017 | Los Angeles Patch (City News Service)

By Staff

USC said today that despite what was stated in news reports, disgraced former medical school dean Dr. Carmen Puliafito actually brought in about $12 million in donations during the past seven years -- not the $1 billion he apparently claimed last month.
In a three-page letter to university supporters, Al Checcio, senior vice president for University Advancement, trumpets what he describes as "one of the most successful campaigns in the history of American higher education."
During the past fiscal year, Checcio reports, USC raised more than $794 million in new gifts and pledges, bringing the total of donations to nearly $6.3 billion as of June 30.
Puliafito claimed in a Los Angeles Times news story published last month that he'd raised $1 billion for USC after he was hired by the university in 2007.
Checcio disputes that amount, subtracting about $988 million from Puliafito's calculations.
"In light of media reports regarding medical fundraising and the former dean of our medical school, Dr. Carmen Puliafito, I feel I must correct the record in order to protect the integrity and hard work of our department chairs, doctors, researchers, and professional staff who are the real heroes of our fundraising achievements," the letter reads.
"While the media reported early on that our former dean was a self-described `prodigious' fundraiser, let me state the facts."
"In the past seven years, Dr. Puliafito was responsible for barely one percent of the more than $1.2 billion that USC raised for medicine," Checcio wrote.
A Times investigation found that when he was dean of the Keck School of Medicine, Puliafito used drugs and partied with a group of younger addicts, prostitutes and other criminals in 2015 and 2016, and brought some to his Keck office in the middle of the night. The disclosures sparked questions at USC over how administrators handled the dean's case.
Puliafito, 66, resigned from his post at the medical school in March 2016, three weeks after a 21-year-old woman overdosed on drugs in a hotel room registered to Puliafito, the newspaper reported. USC kept him on the medical school faculty and allowed him to accept new patients.
After The Times story was published in July, USC moved to fire the Harvard-educated Puliafito and barred him from campus.

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