Attempted Murder, Theft Counts Face AIDS Victim’s Nurse

Attempted murder, grand theft, forgery and credit card fraud charges will be filed today against the nurse who is alleged to have called in a insulin prescription for hospitalized AIDS patient Edward Lebowitz, the district attorney’s office said Tuesday.

District attorney’s spokesman Al Albergate said additional charges could be filed against Hal Speers Rachman, 39, of Venice.

Although the coroner’s office has ruled that Lebowitz, who died at a Santa Monica hospital four days after the Sept. 19 insulin injection put him into a coma, succumbed to other causes related to AIDS, the district attorney has ordered further lab tests on Lebowitz’s blood and tissue to determine what impact the insulin had, Albergate said.

Arraignment Slated

Rachman will be arraigned today in Santa Monica Superior Court, Albergate said. He has been held without bail in the Santa Monica jail since his arrest last Saturday.

Authorities said the police investigation into the crime has indicated that between the time Rachman took the 48-year-old entertainment lawyer to St. John’s Hospital for admittance the night of Sept. 17 and Lebowitz’s death Sept. 23, the suspect used Lebowitz’s bank and credit cards to steal about $32,000 from his accounts.

Albergate said police found that most of this amount represented cash withdrawals from Lebowitz’s account with Bank of America. Rachman also allegedly purchased an automobile for $1,700 with a check drawn on the account. These allegations led to the grand theft, forgery and fraud charges, Albergate said.

Rachman has no prior criminal record “that we’re aware of,” Albergate said.

Called an Exemplary Worker

Meanwhile, one of Rachman’s former employers, Catherine Winteringham of Associated Health Professionals Inc. of Culver City described him as an exemplary employee during the more than a year that he worked for her firm.

“He was very well received by our client hospitals, and in fact it was common for him to be requested to return,” Winteringham said.

Rachman’s employer in the Lebowitz case, Healthfolk Home Health Care of Van Nuys, has said the nurse apparently did not know Lebowitz before being assigned to provide home care for him for one eight- to 12-hour shift on Sept. 17.

At the end of that shift, Rachman drove his patient to St. John’s Hospital and had him admitted. Two days later, Rachman is alleged to have called the hospital, pretending to be Lebowitz’s doctor, and ordered that the acquired immune deficiency syndrome patient be given an insulin injection.