Man Found Guilty of Giving Baby a Near-Fatal Overdose

Former hospital technician Randy Powers was found guilty Thursday of having deliberately injected an 11-month-old girl with a heart drug that left her unconscious and near death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michelle Rosenblatt said Powers had administered the potentially deadly injection in an attempt to get “a little bit of glory; he was looking for recognition as the savior of a baby.”

Powers, 26, of Encino, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful practice of medicine and child endangering for having administered a massive dose of Lidocaine to little Sarah Mathews of Van Nuys on Sept. 10, 1984, while his mother was baby-sitting the infant.

Van Nuys Superior Court Commissioner Alan B. Haber, who heard the 10-day case without a jury, handed down his verdict moments after attorneys concluded their final arguments. He remanded Powers--who had been free on $20,000 bail--to the custody of the sheriff pending sentencing, scheduled for July 10.

Powers faces up to 7 years’ imprisonment.

Defense attorney Sammy Weiss accused doctors and nurses at Northridge Medical Center of having mistakenly administered the Lidocaine injections to the child themselves during emergency treatment--and then conspiring to frame Powers.

“I’m not sure whether this case should be called the Powers case or the Northridge Hospital cover-up,” he said.

Weiss also argued that Powers had, in fact, saved the infant’s life, pointing to doctors’ testimony that the child would have died without a plastic airway Powers inserted in her throat before rushing her to the hospital when she lost consciousness.

During the trial, doctors testified that the baby’s blood contained more than 20 times the amount of Lidocaine--a local anesthetic sometimes used to control irregular heartbeat--that would be used to treat an adult, an overdose that left her unconscious and in critical condition.

Haber dismissed a further charge that Powers had intended to cause great bodily injury to the baby, and a charge of attempted murder also arising from the case was dropped last month.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg, head of the medical-legal section of the district attorney’s office, said the deaths of several elderly patients at Queen of Angels Medical Center and Sherman Oaks Community Hospital, where Powers worked in 1983 and 1984, are also under investigation.