The Insulin Call--a Fear, Then an OK

St. John’s Hospital nurse Robin A. Shean told the caller--who claimed he was Edward Lebowitz’s doctor--that the patient’s blood-sugar level was in the low normal range and that she feared the insulin injection might have negative effects, according to the police report. ‘Yes, I know,’ the man allegedly replied. ‘But that’s OK. I want to keep the blood sugar low and I don’t want the night shift calling me back.’

The St. John’s Hospital nurse who received an impostor’s call prescribing insulin for an AIDS patient questioned whether that was proper treatment but finally accepted the caller’s assurance that it was the latest in AIDS care, according to a police file released Wednesday.

Nurse Robin A. Shean told the caller who claimed to be Edward Lebowitz’s doctor that the patient’s blood sugar level was already in the low normal range and that she feared that the insulin injection might have negative effects, the file said.

“Yes, I know,” the man allegedly replied in the Sept. 20 call. “But that’s OK. I want to keep the blood sugar low and I don’t want the night shift calling me back.”

But, police said, Shean accepted the bogus prescription after the caller--alleged by police to be nurse Hal Speers Rachman--assured her during the late night 15-minute conversation that it had recently been discovered that keeping an AIDS patient’s blood sugar low would retard the disease.

In fact, medical experts say, there is no evidence that this is the case. It was only after Lebowitz, 48, slipped into a coma four hours later that nurses called physician Robert E. Winters for further instructions and were informed that he was not the caller. Three days later, Lebowitz died, although the county coroner has ruled that the insulin injection was not the cause of death.

The police file, containing many new details on the case, was made public as Rachman was arraigned in Santa Monica Municipal Court on charges of attempted murder, forgery, fraudulent use of credit cards and grand theft.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Oct. 9. The 39-year-old Venice resident was ordered held on $250,000 bail.

The police file contains evidence that Rachman, who treated Lebowitz at his home for only a few hours before driving him to the hospital Sept. 17, then used the patient’s identification, credit cards and bank cards to drain his accounts or make purchases in his name totaling $32,000. Investigators believe that Rachman phoned in the bogus prescription with the motive of killing Lebowitz so as to cover his thefts.

Rachman’s attorney, William H. Randall of Orange, said outside of court, however, that Rachman had written authorization from Lebowitz to use his cards to take care of certain monetary and property matters.

Randall claimed that Santa Monica police are in possession of the authorization. They denied it.

“We think this whole case is a fabrication to cover up gross negligence on the part of St. John’s Hospital,” said Randall, who also suggested that the call to the hospital may have been from a friend who wanted to end Lebowitz’s suffering.

A spokesman for the Santa Monica hospital responded that an internal investigation of the matter has “found that all actions on the part of St. John’s personnel and medical staff were according to California state regulations and St. John’s own policies and procedures.” Hospital officials said previously that they would tighten those procedures beyond what was required as a result of the case.

Within minutes of the cover-up allegation, the authorities released the police file.

The lengthy report of the chief investigator, detective Ray Cooper, indicated that:

- The manager, credit manager and vault teller at the Bank of America’s Manhattan Beach branch have all identified Rachman as the man who, claiming to be Lebowitz and displaying his identification, arranged to transfer Lebowitz’s accounts from the bank’s Beverly-Wilshire and Century City branches to the Manhattan Beach branch. He allegedly drained them of $27,000 before bank personnel became suspicious.

Bank manager Ken Bostrack told police that the suspect first appeared Sept. 19 and identified himself as Lebowitz. He told the bankers that his car had been stolen, and with it his bank books and $10,000 in cash; he then established an account that day. Four days later, after transferring money from the other Lebowitz accounts, he withdrew $20,000 in cash from the bank’s vault.

Credit manager Ethena Uno told police that the suspect seemed nervous when he first came in and told her conflicting stories about the thefts. And the vault teller, Lisa Hatterman, said the suspect’s willingness to take part of the $20,000 in $20 bills had caused her to wonder.

But it was not until two days after the money had been withdrawn that the Manhattan Beach branch personnel became suspicious, according to police. Bostrack told investigators that he learned then that the signatures on the account opened by the suspect did not match Lebowitz’s signatures at the other branches, nor did other information, such as his mother’s maiden name. Bostrack then alerted Bank of America security personnel, who in turn notified police about apparent irregularities in the accounts.

- Authorities first got Rachman’s name from Russ Hyatt, operator of Manhattan Beach Ford. Hyatt said that a man claiming to be Lebowitz had written a check drawn on Lebowitz’s accounts for $1,737 in payment for a used car. The man asked that the car be registered in the name of a person he claimed was a cousin named Hal Rachman at a Venice address.

- When Detective Cooper and another officer went to that address, they found Rachman’s wife, Vickie Sue Speers, who was “very jovial.” In fact, the responses of Speers, who apparently had no idea of her husband’s involvement, led to Rachman’s arrest, police said.

She was asked, for example, whether her husband seemed to have come into some money lately, and said he had. She said he had explained the windfall by saying that his bank had made a $2,000 error in his accounts and that he had withdrawn the money.

Asked whether she had heard him place any calls to St. John’s Hospital on the night of Sept. 20, she said she thought she had. She told investigators she had found that unusual because her husband “usually doesn’t take a personal interest in his patients.”

Rachman’s wife also told officers that he had just obtained a car that matched the one purchased at the Ford agency. Cooper wrote that he then “requested assistance” from backup plainclothes officers.

And when Rachman returned to his apartment a little later, his arms filled with computer software he had just purchased, he was placed under arrest.

- Nikko E. Ashton, the head of the Van Nuys nurse registry who employed Rachman briefly as Lebowitz’s nurse, told officers that shortly after Rachman drove Lebowitz to the hospital, she received a call from Lebowitz expressing concern about what had happened to his wallet, his car, his house keys and a sweater.

Ashton, according to the file, called Rachman, who told her that he had “secured” Lebowitz’s car and keys at his home and had left his wallet and sweater with hospital security. Rachman is now charged with using the contents of the wallet to drain Lebowitz’s accounts.