More Murder Charges Sought Against Doctor

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office Monday asked that two murder charges be added to the seven against Milos Klvana, a Valencia obstetrician charged in the deaths of newborn infants in his care.

After his arrest in October, 1986, Klvana, 47, was charged with nine counts of second-degree murder. But in October, 1987, Municipal Court Judge James F. Nelson ordered that two of the charges be dropped.

After a four-month preliminary hearing, Nelson determined that the two charges involved only gross negligence, not malice, the mental state needed for a second-degree murder charge. But the judge said he could not charge Klvana with manslaughter in one of the cases since the killing took place in 1982, three years after the statute of limitations had elapsed.

Klvana was not charged in the other matter, which involved the death of a stillborn fetus, because Nelson again found there was insufficient evidence to establish malice. Nelson did find sufficient evidence of criminal negligence. But he decided that although criminal negligence is an element of involuntary manslaughter, the charge could not be brought because manslaughter of a fetus is not a crime.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian R. Kelberg filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court to reinstate the additional counts. “The crux of what he did was murder nine babies,” Kelberg said of Klvana. The prosecutor called the judge’s ruling “an erroneous legal conclusion.”

Kelberg said Klvana “knowingly engaged in life-threatening conduct” that led to the deaths of the newborns from December, 1982, through September, 1986.

Also charged in the deaths is Klvana’s former assistant, Delores Doyle, a midwife. In October, Doyle was ordered to stand trial on three counts of second-degree murder.

Klvana and Doyle did not take appropriate action when confronted with serious complications during home births or births at Klvana’s clinics in Valencia and Temple City, Kelberg said. The babies died shortly after birth, the prosecutor said.

The pregnancies were high risk, and the infants should have been transported to hospitals for emergency care, Kelberg said.

The pair, arrested Oct. 31, 1986, have charged that they are being prosecuted because medical and legal authorities are biased against home births.

Each second-degree murder charge carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison, Kelberg said. If convicted, Klvana probably will be sentenced to life in prison, the prosecutor said.

If convicted of all nine charges, he probably will receive the same life sentence, Kelberg said, but will serve more years in prison before being eligible for parole.