Board Leaning to Acting Chief for Coroner Job : Government: Two L.A. supervisors say they intend to vote for the temporary medical examiner. A third says he is also strongly inclined in that direction.

After losing their first and second choices for Los Angeles County coroner, a majority of the Board of Supervisors on Thursday was leaning toward the appointment of the acting chief medical examiner.

Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Kenneth Hahn said they intend to vote for J. Lawrence Cogan to fill the $150,000-a-year post that has been vacant for 1 1/2 years. Supervisor Deane Dana said he is leaning heavily toward casting the third vote required for the appointment.

“It looks pretty good for Dr. Cogan,” Dana said.

The board’s other two members, Gloria Molina and Ed Edelman, were undecided.

Cogan, who was passed over twice for the job, found himself back in the running Thursday after Dr. Yong-Myun Rho, a former deputy New York City medical examiner, flunked the California medical licensing test that was necessary to assume the Los Angeles coroner’s post. Rho was given three chances to pass the test.

He was selected last March after the board’s first choice, the coroner of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, turned down the job, citing Los Angeles’ high housing costs. Rho could not be reached for comment.

Cogan, 47, has been acting chief medical examiner since Coroner Ronald Kornblum resigned in July, 1990. Cogan, a 14-year veteran of the coroner’s office, previously served as one of three senior deputy medical examiners, the third-highest medical position in the department. He is a graduate of Loyola University of Chicago Medical School.

Reached at his San Fernando Valley home where he is on vacation, Cogan said: “I’m sad that Dr. Rho did not pass the exam. . . . That doesn’t give me any pleasure at all. However, I am confident that I can fulfill the function of chief medical examiner-coroner” if selected.

Dana said the coroner’s office has been functioning effectively under Cogan for the last 18 months. “The coroner’s office has been operating smooth as glass,” Dana said. “Better than I have seen it in the 11 years I have been here. If it isn’t broke, why fix it?”

The supervisors in 1990 split up management of the office, vesting medical decisions with the chief medical examiner and administrative matters with a manager. The manager is Ilona Lewis.

The sharing of responsibilities was ordered after Kornblum resigned in the aftermath of a critical management audit. The audit found that staff shortages, coupled with a growing homicide rate, were leading to a breakdown in controls and unsanitary conditions.

Kornblum took over the office in 1982 from Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi, self-styled “coroner to the stars” who was accused of poor management and was demoted.

County auditors are conducting a routine follow-up audit on the coroner’s office but declined to comment Thursday on their preliminary findings.

The supervisors are scheduled to discuss the selection of a coroner in a closed-door meeting Tuesday.

Richard B. Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer, said the supervisors could conduct a new nationwide recruitment drive or select one of the two remaining candidates recommended for interview by a private search firm.

Besides Cogan, the only other candidate on the list is Elliot Gross, a forensic pathologist for Indiana’s Lake County who lost his job as New York City’s chief medical examiner amid allegations of mismanagement. Gross did not return a call to his office Thursday.

The problem with conducting another nationwide search, Dana said, is the difficulty in finding candidates who are not frightened away by the high cost of housing in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office, one of the busiest in the nation, last year investigated 18,068 suspicious or violent deaths, including 2,401 possible homicides. The office conducted 6,256 autopsies.