No Charges Filed in Pregnant Woman’s Death : Investigation: District attorney’s office is awaiting the outcome of an autopsy on 27-year-old who visited an unlicensed women’s clinic in Santa Ana. The clinic director and an employee remain in jail.

The Orange County district attorney’s office declined to file charges Friday against the director and an employee of an unlicensed Santa Ana women’s clinic who were arrested in connection with the death of a 27-year-old pregnant patient.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King said it was decided not to file charges against clinic director Alicia Ruiz Hanna, 31, of Santa Ana or employee Isasema Araceli Mendoza, 20, of Orange because the coroner’s office has yet to determine what caused the death of Angela Nieto Sanchez.

Sanchez, a housecleaner from Orange with four children, was pronounced dead at a hospital Tuesday afternoon, several hours after she visited Hanna’s clinic, Clinica Femenina de la Comunidad.

King said late Friday that the “investigation is continuing. . . . We anticipate that the cause of death will be determined, and once that has happened, we will take a look at this case for what, if any, charges should be filed.”

Hanna and Mendoza remained at the Orange County Jail late Friday in lieu of $250,000 bail. But Hanna, at least, was expected to be released sometime this weekend because no charges were filed within 48 hours of her arrest Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Hanna’s women’s clinic and the Family Health and Weight Control Center she operated in the same medical office in the 1300 block of South Bristol Street remained closed Friday after police shut them down.

State medical authorities said there is no record of a license issued to Clinica Femenina de la Comunidad in Santa Ana, nor is Hanna, who police say claimed to be a registered nurse, licensed as a registered or vocational nurse in California. Catherine Puri, executive officer of the state Board of Registered Nursing, said that practicing without a license is a misdemeanor and that her office would be contacting the Orange County district attorney for possible investigation.

Officials for legitimate family planning agencies said that Clinica Femenina was a cipher to them.

“This kind of place is off the family planning map,” said Barbara Jackson, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties. “I know of more than a dozen family planning clinics in the area, and this is not one of them.”

The clinic’s lack of required licensing prompted some medical and health care professionals to question whether it was one of a growing number of clandestine clinics, many of which dispense treatment and medication to poor, often Latino immigrants.

“In the past, we have learned of the clinicas clandestinas --clinics literally operating out of garages--and Latino customers who, because of a lack of insurance, seek these places out because they can’t afford anywhere else,” said Rolando Castillo, an assistant clinical professor at UC Irvine’s North Orange County Community Clinic.

A teary-eyed Maria Sanchez, the dead woman’s oldest child, said Friday that she and a 3-year-old brother accompanied their mother to the clinic Tuesday morning.

When Angela Sanchez disappeared with a clinic worker into a room in the medical center, it was the last time her children saw her alive, the 12-year-old girl whispered with downcast eyes in the cramped living room of the family’s apartment in Orange.

Maria said a clinic employee came out some time later and said the girl’s mother wanted Maria to take her purse and car keys and drive home. Maria said she told the woman, “But I’m only 12. I can’t drive.”

Angela Sanchez was about one month pregnant and in good health when she went to the Bristol Street clinic, according to Celia Sanchez, the dead woman’s 27-year-old sister. Angela had been to the clinic before, a year ago, before the birth of her youngest son.

Celia Sanchez said that someone from the clinic had advised her sister to come in for a consultation regarding her pregnancy. Early police reports indicated that Angela Sanchez may have gone to the clinic to seek an abortion. But in their living room, decorated with paintings of Jesus Christ and the Last Supper, Angela Sanchez’s relatives discounted that possibility.

Maria Sanchez said she didn’t know exactly what sort of care or medication her mother was to get at the clinic. But she said a doctor at Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, where her mother was pronounced dead, later told the family that Angela Sanchez had been given some kind of injection. What kind or why they didn’t know.

King, the deputy district attorney handling the Sanchez case, would not comment on reports that Sanchez had received an injection, went into convulsions and may have had her breastbone broken in unsuccessful efforts to revive her.

Sanchez, who is single, had worked cleaning houses in Orange and in South County since she came to the United States six years ago from Mexico City. Her sister said the family will try to find the money to send Angela Sanchez’s body back to Mexico City, where her mother and father still live.

The clinic and the weight control center are both in Suite G of the single-story office complex in a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

According to county records, Hanna registered the business, Clinica Femenina de la Comunidad, under her name on June 26, 1992. More than a year earlier, on Feb. 19, 1991, Hanna registered the Family Health and Weight Control Center at the same address, listing herself as the owner.

In 1988, Hanna registered another business at the same address. She filed a fictitious business application under the name of A&S; Maintenance Co., a partnership with her now ex-husband, Sid F. Hanna, and another woman. However, Sid Hanna said Friday that A&S; Maintenance Co. is his commercial floor care firm, that it has always been located in Garden Grove and that his ex-wife was never part of that business. He said they were divorced in 1990.

On Feb. 4, 1992, Hanna took out another fictitious business application for the same address under the name of C.J. Professional Management Co. Hanna described it as a limited partnership with Dr. Nicholas George Braemer of Palos Verdes.

Braemer could not be reached for comment Friday. But state Medical Board officials said Braemer is licensed as a physician with an office in Torrance. Sid Hanna said that Braemer used to work at the women’s clinic and weight control center but that he no longer does.

According to the state Medical Board, Braemer was convicted in a Los Angeles court on June 15, 1981, of 10 counts of illegally receiving Medi-Cal patient referral fees. Medical Board records indicate that Braemer’s sentence was suspended and he was placed on two years’ probation and fined $20,000.

The Medical Board took additional disciplinary action against Braemer, revoking his physician’s and surgeon’s licenses. It stayed the revocation but placed Braemer on five years’ probation. According to documents on file with the Medical Board, the physician also was suspended from being a Medi-Cal provider for three years.