Spot Check Turns Up Fake Speech Pathologist License : Investigation: Deputies arrest a Dana Point man who they say was using bogus addresses and several aliases to work for years at area hospitals and clinics.

A Dana Point man who allegedly had a set of phony licenses that enabled him to pose as a speech pathologist for several years at area hospitals and clinics was arrested following a four-week search, authorities said Friday.

Charles Schwarz, who also goes by Charles Schwartz, Charles Chow and Douglas Reynolds, was arrested at gunpoint by an Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy about 4:35 p.m. Thursday in his car outside a Laguna Niguel karate studio where he was picking up his 4-year-old son, said Lynne Merrifield, an investigator for the Medical Board of California.

The arrest culminated a nearly monthlong search for Schwarz, whose several aliases and bogus addresses hindered the investigation, Merrifield said.

“The fact he had one of his children in school enabled us to find him,” Merrifield said. “He goes by several names and his addresses usually turn out to be post office boxes.”

Schwarz was arrested on a series of charges involving practicing without a license, Merrifield said. All are misdemeanors.

Schwarz apparently obtained a set of licenses by advertising for speech pathologists in newspapers, Merrifield said. He would then photocopy the documents, college diplomas and licenses of the unsuspecting people who answered the ads, Merrifield said.

Schwarz had been posing as a speech pathologist at Rehab Alliance in Santa Ana, where he was often assigned to work in hospitals all over Southern California, and Pacific Therapies in Huntington Beach, both described as clinics and skilled nursing facilities, Merrifield said.

A spokesman for Pacific Therapies, who declined to give his name, said the suspect had shown them documents under the name Douglas Reynolds.

Reynolds worked on a contract basis for Pacific Therapies generally for $50 a treatment, he said.

It was a spot license check by a company that does billings for the clinics that led to Schwarz, who has two previous grand theft convictions in Orange County, Merrifield said. A call to Sacramento showed the license to be phony, Merrifield said.

“I had worked this guy’s cases before and didn’t know where he was operating,” Merrifield said.

Because his addresses only wound up as post office boxes, it took one of his children’s school records to finally locate his home on Windham Drive in Dana Point, Merrifield said. Schwarz is married and has two children,

He is being held without bail at Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, Merrifield said. He is scheduled to be arraigned June 1.