D.A. Rules Out Felony Charges in Probe of Clandestine Dental Clinic

Felony charges will not be filed against anyone involved in a “Dark Ages” dental clinic in Van Nuys because prosecutors could not find any patients who were harmed by the dental work, authorities said Monday.

The case will be referred today to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office for a decision on whether to file misdemeanor charges, which could include practicing dentistry without a license and furnishing restricted drugs, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christine Thurman said.

Los Angeles police stumbled on the clandestine dental practice Aug. 14 while investigating a complaint of child molestation in the 6100 block of Hazeltine Avenue. Police said they found the Spanish-style home littered with dental tools, bridgework and drugs. A porcelain spit bowl channeled blood and saliva through a pipe into the backyard, they said.

Carmen Cevallos, 29, of Van Nuys, was arrested on suspicion of running an illegal dental practice, and Carlos Andrade, 34, also of Van Nuys, on suspicion of child molestation.

Investigators have been unable to locate a third person, identified as the primary dentist in the operation, and he has not been charged, Thurman said.

Although a police detective originally described the lab as “absolutely disgusting,” subsequent interviews with a dozen patients “showed the quality of care wasn’t quite as bad as we first believed,” Thurman said.

A felony assault charge would have required evidence that at least one of the patients suffered “great bodily injury” from the dental work, Thurman said. But none of the Spanish-speaking patients interviewed wanted to pursue the matter, and some said they were satisfied with the dental care, she said.

Detective Steve Merrin said the patients, most of them illegal aliens, learned of the clinic through word of mouth. Some paid thousands of dollars for their dental or orthodontic work, he said.

Merrin was especially appalled by sanitary conditions he likened to “something out of the Dark Ages.” He said electrician’s pliers apparently were used to pull teeth and that police discovered cockroaches crawling inside an autoclave designed to sterilize instruments.

Merrin and two other detectives went to the Van Nuys home a week after a woman charged that her 6-year-old daughter had been molested by Andrade at a dental office there.

Thurman said Andrade will not be charged with felony child molestation. That case also is being referred to the city attorney’s office, she said.