Attempted-Murder Count Dismissed in Baby’s Drugging

A judge dismissed on Friday a charge of attempted murder against Randy Powers, the former hospital technician accused of injecting a near-fatal dose of the heart drug lidocaine into an 11-month-old girl in September.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian said the evidence presented against the Encino man at a preliminary hearing did not show that Powers intended to kill the girl.

Deaths of 15 Probed

But the judge let stand charges of assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful practice of medicine and child endangering against the 26-year-old Powers.

Powers is still under investigation in connection with the deaths of at least 15 patients at two hospitals where he worked, according to prosecutor Brian Kelberg, who runs the county district attorney’s medico-legal section.

Powers was employed as a respiratory therapist by Queen of Angels Medical Center in Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks Community Hospital in 1983 and 1984, according to hospital records.

Kelberg said the bodies of several elderly patients who died at Queen of Angels have been exhumed for examination, and that records from “many, many patients” at the Sherman Oaks hospital are under review.

He said the investigation centers on patients who were reported to have suffered respiratory and cardiac arrests while Powers was employed at the Sherman Oaks hospital from December, 1983, to May, 1984.

Kelberg said the investigation was prompted by hospital administrators who raised “suspicions after looking over their records.”

Admission Alleged

“We are still in the process of collecting and evaluating evidence,” he said.

Powers is charged with injecting lidocaine into a Van Nuys infant, Sarah Mathews, while she was under the care of Powers’ mother, who operated a day-care center in Encino.

At a preliminary hearing in January, Los Angeles Police Detective P. J. Quartararo testified that Powers admitted injecting the drug after he thought Sarah had been bitten by an insect and had gone into seizures.

The drug, which is used as a local anesthetic and to control an irregular heartbeat, left the girl unconscious and in critical condition, according to doctors’ testimony at the preliminary hearing.

To save her life, physicians at Northridge Hospital Medical Center performed a tracheotomy to help her to breathe. She was released from the hospital in October.

Child Doing ‘Fairly Well’

Sarah, now 19 months old, has almost fully recovered, according to an attorney who represented the family.

“She is getting along fairly well,” said the attorney, who requested that his name not be used. “She still has a noticeable scar on her neck from the removal of the breathing tube.”

He said Sarah “is still mistrustful of strangers” and her parents cannot leave her side without her crying.

Quartararo showed the court a statement he said was signed by Powers, in which the defendant admitted stealing both the lidocaine and the syringe from Queen of Angels Medical Center.

In an interview following the January preliminary hearing, however, Powers insisted he had not administered the drug to the infant. He said that, after she developed seizures, he drove her to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where a pediatrician on duty injected the drug.

Claims He Saved Life

“It was the doctor in the emergency room who did it,” he said. “I saved this little girl’s life.”

Besides throwing out the attempted-murder charge Friday, Kolostian denied a motion from Powers’ attorney to change the venue of the trial, scheduled to begin May 31.

If convicted on all counts, Powers, who is free on $20,000 bail, could be sentenced to a maximum of seven years and eight months, said Michelle Rosenblatt, deputy district attorney.