Judge Blasts Pace of Body Donor Case

Nearly 16 months after authorities broke up an alleged cadaver trafficking scheme at UCLA medical school, the criminal investigation has lagged to the point that a judge recently called prosecutors’ pace “glacial.”

All the while, relatives of hundreds who donated their bodies to UCLA for research have been waiting to learn whether their loved ones’ remains were cut up and sold for parts by a middleman whose clients included giant medical research corporations.

“If there was a real interest in pursuing something, you would think they would have done it by now,” said Mike Arias, an attorney representing families suing UCLA in civil court. “We have too many people waiting to get answers.”

The cadaver scandal became public in March 2004 when The Times reported that Henry Reid, then-director of the willed-body program, and an associate had been placed on leave amid suspicions they had sold several hundred bodies for personal gain.

Reid was arrested on suspicion of grand theft. Ernest V. Nelson, the middleman who is believed to have resold the cadavers to major research corporations, was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Neither man has been charged, and neither is in custody. Nelson is writing an insider’s account of the scandal. Reid is working in the music industry, doing freelance production work, his lawyer said.

Reid’s associate, Keith Lewis, was never charged and died last summer of an accidental drug overdose.

At a criminal court hearing last month, Superior Court Judge James R. Brandlin agreed to give attorneys in the civil lawsuit access to records of the now-closed willed-body program.

The documents have been in the hands of the UCLA Police Department, which is investigating the case.

In response to a prosecutor’s assertion that the court was trying to rush the district attorney’s probe, Brandlin said, “I hardly consider it rushing. This is glacial speed.”

Brandlin was incredulous that prosecutors had only recently started to review tens of thousands of documents contained in 40 boxes. “I guess my question is, what’s taken place in the full year that your office has been involved in this?” he asked prosecutor Marisa Zarate.

On Tuesday, an attorney for Reid and lawyers for the relatives in the civil case questioned whether the UCLA Police Department was capable of investigating the case.

“No. 1, they don’t have the necessary experience to do a complete investigation,” said Mel Sacks, Reid’s lawyer, “and secondly, there’s a conflict of interest. They are part of the university and will do everything they can to protect the image and reputation of UCLA.”

UCLA police officials defended their investigation. In a written statement Tuesday, Police Chief Karl T. Ross said his department is “aggressively pursuing all avenues” and expects to present an “effective case to the district attorney in the near future.”

“While we understand the concerns of those who would like a more speedy resolution, our criminal justice system often requires patience while cases are investigated and adjudicated,” Ross said in his statement.

He added that UCLA police, a branch of the statewide University of California police force, operates “freely and independently of UCLA when investigating criminal cases.”

Although many smaller police departments defer to larger law enforcement agencies when handling serious and complicated cases, the UCLA police department chose to go forward with the cadaver investigation.

Six years ago, UCLA police and the Los Angeles Police Department tried but failed to work out an agreement that would have allowed the larger department to handle higher-profile cases.

The district attorney’s office has said that the UCLA cadaver investigation is on track.

Earlier this year, the district attorney’s office offered to provide help “with all aspects of the UCLA investigation,” spokeswoman Jane Robison said. Robison would not comment on whether UCLA police were devoting appropriate resources to the investigation, saying it was up to each law enforcement agency to decide how to conduct its investigation.

UCLA officials indefinitely suspended the willed-body program, the nation’s oldest, in 2004.

On Tuesday, a medical school official said UCLA is reconfiguring the program and hiring new staff members so campus lawyers can seek court approval to reopen the program in the fall. By that time, a new system should be in place to use radio frequency transmitters to track cadavers at all times, said Dr. Allen Nissenson, associate dean for special projects.

The university will not seek to reinstate the program “until we are absolutely 100% sure that we think this is what it should be and what it needs to be,” Nissenson said.

UCLA’s willed-body program had received about 175 donated bodies every year and had a waiting list of more than 11,000 people who had agreed to donate their bodies for use by researchers and medical students.

Some of the unused bodies -- worth thousands of dollars to biomedical firms -- are being stored in a large freezer on the seventh floor of UCLA Medical Center.

Jean-Claude Andre, 29, whose father died in June 2003, said he can’t separate his father’s memory from the questions he has about the way his body was treated by UCLA. His doubts haunt him, he said.

“To get closure, you want the answers to the questions that you think about when you’re awake, and you also want the answers to the questions that you think about in your dreams,” said Andre.

Barbara Ely’s body was donated to UCLA after her death in 2003. Her daughter, Cathlen Ross, said her mother had expected to have her ashes scattered in a rose garden when researchers and students were finished with her remains.

“If I had cremated my mother, at least visually I would know where we spread her ashes,” said Ross, who lives in Hiram, Ga. “My mother was a vain woman, so this would not have pleased her.”

UCLA lawyers said they wanted to provide families with updates, but were constrained.

“We can’t provide information that we don’t have access to, and some of it has been tied up in the criminal proceedings,” said Christopher Patti, university counsel for the UC regents.

Meanwhile, Reid and Nelson have gone about their lives. In March, Nelson announced that he would write a book entitled “Willing Bodies: Inside the UCLA Willed-Body Program.” His publicist, Deborah Robinson, said Tuesday that the book had not yet gone to a publisher.

A news release touting the book said, “He uncovers exactly what UCLA officials knew and through a remarkable six-year paper trail, Nelson reveals their well-established system of selling body parts. But he doesn’t stop there. Uncensored and unmitigated, Nelson hands over his little black book of clients, including several Fortune 500 medical research companies.”

Nelson has argued he did nothing wrong, because he did not profit from the sale of bodies, and UCLA was informed of his actions.

The UCLA willed-body case was among several alleged scandals in a decade at UC medical schools involving the misuse of bodies or body parts.

In 1993, hazardous medical waste was discovered inside boxes of cremated human remains from UCLA. The operator of a funeral-at-sea business said the debris included broken parts of syringes, glass vials, clumps of used gauze and a rubber glove.

At the time, UCLA acknowledged that the cremated remains came from the university’s willed-body program.

In 1996, lawyers representing relatives of people whose bodies had been donated to the program sued UCLA’s medical school and the UC regents, alleging that the willed-body program had illegally disposed of thousands of donated bodies since the 1950s by placing them in landfills, among other things.

That lawsuit is pending.