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State to Revoke Medical License of ‘Dr. Death’ : Euthanasia: Jack Kevorkian gained worldwide note for helping 20 people, including Costa Mesa man, end lives.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The California medical license of Jack Kevorkian, who acquired an international reputation and the moniker “Dr. Death” for assisting in 20 suicides, including that of a Costa Mesa man, will be permanently revoked as of midnight Friday, the state attorney general’s office said Wednesday.

The Medical Board of California, which suspended Kevorkian’s license in April, 1993, issued its decision June 29, effective a month later. Details of the ruling were not made public until Wednesday.

After Friday, Kevorkian has only “a tiny window of opportunity” to reclaim his license, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Thomas Lazar. If he wishes to appeal, he has 30 days to file suit in Superior Court, but isn’t expected to do so, and even if he does, his chances for reinstatement are poor, Lazar said.

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“He’s finished. The effect of the medical board’s decision was essentially to kick Kevorkian out of the world of medicine,” said the San Diego-based prosecutor who has argued the state’s case at several hearings before an administrative law judge.

Kevorkian, whose medical license was suspended in his home state of Michigan in 1991, is appealing a ruling by a Michigan court that seeks to have the 65-year-old former pathologist tried on murder charges. California was the only other state where he held a medical license.

Having obtained his California license in 1957, Kevorkian worked at two hospitals in Long Beach from 1979 to 1982. He lives in Troy, Mich., near where each of the assisted suicides has taken place.

Kevorkian could not be reached for comment Wednesday, and his Michigan-based attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, declined to comment. But last year, after California suspended Kevorkian’s license, Fieger said Kevorkian had no intention of appealing.

At the time, Fieger said that Kevorkian “couldn’t care less” about losing his California license and “will go on assisting people commit suicide. He dares (California) to come catch him.”

Kevorkian is accused of playing a role in five additional suicides since then.

Last year, state officials presented evidence showing that Kevorkian had assisted in the suicides of a San Diego County woman suffering from terminal cancer and a Costa Mesa man, whose best friend argued that he was merely depressed over the death of his mother and not seriously ill.

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Jonathon Grenz of Costa Mesa incurred cancer in 1992, causing doctors to remove his voice box and tongue. But at the time he committed suicide with Kevorkian’s help, he had recovered from the cancer and was grieving over the loss of his mother, according to the court testimony of Newport Beach real estate agent Linda Healy.

Grenz, 44, was “depressed from his surgery, overwhelmed with grief over the loss of his mother and was never given the opportunity to grieve over his losses,” testified Healy, who had worked with Grenz at an Orange County real estate firm.

Martha Ruwart, 40, of Cardiff by the Sea, whose duodenal cancer had invaded her small intestine and ovaries with numerous tumors, died in a Waterford, Mich., home in 1993 with Kevorkian by her side. It was Ruwart’s death that prompted the Michigan Legislature to pass a law banning assisted suicide.

But despite what Lazar called the “compelling” nature of the two cases involving California residents, the state’s strongest evidence in revoking the license involved five suicides that had no connection to California and which the board found to be particularly egregious breaches of medical ethics, Lazar said.

“We don’t care if they happened on the moon,” he added. “We merely used them to show that he was unfit to practice medicine in California and won’t ever again.”

While a chapter may have closed in California, Kevorkian’s troubles in Michigan may eventually place him behind bars.

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In May, the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the state law designed to stop Kevorkian’s practice of assisted suicide but ordered murder charges reinstated against him.

Since Kevorkian was licensed to practice medicine in only two states, he is “no longer Dr. Kevorkian,” Lazar said. “He’s Mr. Kevorkian. He’s no different from an auto mechanic who can offer carbon-monoxide death by inhalation.

“After Friday, you won’t have to worry about Jack Kevorkian in California ever again. What Michigan does is up to Michigan, but speaking only for California, he’s done here . . . finished . . . forever.”

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