Judge Rejects 2 Doctors’ Call to Cut Hot Line

Two of the three local doctors accused of transplanting human eggs without patient permission were dealt another blow Friday when a judge rejected their attempt to disconnect UC Irvine’s patient hot line set up since the scandal plaguing its world-renowned fertility clinic.

But in court papers filed Friday, the doctors fired back at the university with allegations of their own, charging that officials trespassed at their clinic, lied about their employment status, harassed them and tried to crucify their careers.

Attorneys for Drs. Jose Balmaceda and Sergio Stone argued in court that the new hot line would compromise their doctor-patient relationships and enable the university to destroy their medical practice by steering patients to other physicians.

University officials countered that the hot line could help with a flood of patient questions about the growing controversy over the Center for Reproductive Health.

“The university is motivated by the need to meet the needs of the patients,” said Thomas A. Ryan, an attorney representing the UC Board of Regents.

After an hourlong hearing, Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Polis said he found insufficient evidence that the university was overstepping its bounds, and tentatively denied the doctors’ request. He set another hearing for July 28 to review the issue if necessary.

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Meanwhile, a marriage and family counselor who works with infertile couples said she had received frantic calls from some former patients of the Center for Reproductive Health and its director, Dr. Ricardo H. Asch.

“They are worried regarding the biological origin of their children,” said the counselor, Ellen Winters Miller. “There are people who are worried about their embryos that are still at the clinic and [they] wonder how they can access them and move them to another physician.”

The regents delivered a blistering attack on the three doctors Thursday by amending a lawsuit filed last week to add allegations that the physicians transplanted human eggs without patient consent, conducted human subject research without permission and prescribed a fertility drug not approved by the government.

The lawsuit also included charges that the team hid cash payments from administrators at UC Irvine, and requested a temporary restraining order to keep the doctors from destroying patient records.

In legal papers filed Friday, Stone’s attorney Karen Taillon argues the regents have been “increasingly intrusive, disruptive and violative of the physicians’ . . . right to peacefully and competently operate their individual medical practices,” since January.

Stone’s cross-complaint against the regents says that during April and May, UCI police officers trespassed at the Center for Reproductive Health and that on April 27 they “seized, confiscated, and removed private patient medical records, files and charts belonging to [the clinic] and the physicians,” refusing to return the records for a week.

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Taillon also contends that UC officials lied to patients and university employees last month, saying that Stone had been fired from the clinic and lost his tenured faculty position. In April, the university instructed an employee to pack up Stone’s office, according to the complaint.

“I have not destroyed or altered records or equipment, and I have no knowledge of anyone else doing so,” Stone said in a declaration to the court. “I believe [these allegations] are just one more attempt . . . to cause me injury and interfere with my relationship with my patients and interfere with my ability to practice my profession.”

But in legal papers, the university has alleged that the physicians have stolen or altered documents, shedding new details on a previous request for court action to safeguard records and computers still in the doctors’ possession.

The university contends that the doctors--who were placed on leave last Friday--have removed records about their fertility work and taken two computers off UCI property since the school in April expanded its probe investigation into alleged wrongdoing at the clinic.

University officials said their attempts to get the clinic records have been met repeatedly with delaying tactics and threats of legal action.

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Also Friday, Balmaceda moved to salvage his reputation, asking the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology to review the informed consent and embryo accounting procedures of the Saddleback Center for Reproductive Health, of which he is director.

“I am disturbed that irresponsible, unproven allegations have worried some patients and undermined the confidence of others in our work to help patients realize their dream of parenthood,” Balmaceda said in a statement released Friday.

“Our informed consent and embryo accounting procedures at the Saddleback Center are sound. I will reassure any of my patients who may be concerned,” Balmaceda continued. “I am heartened by the outpouring of encouragement and support from patients and their families.”

Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Middleton said an investigator spent Friday conducting interviews as part of a criminal investigation that also involves UCI police and the state Medical Board. He said investigators also are looking into blackmail letters turned over by Asch and one of the other doctors.

“This investigation could take a month or more,” Middleton said. “There’s a lot of records to obtain and look at--that will take time.”

A spokeswoman for the Internal Revenue Service declined to comment Friday on whether federal investigators would review the allegations regarding financial fraud contained in UCI’s lawsuit.

At the Center for Reproductive Health, an employee said the office was calm Friday despite the allegations revealed in the lawsuit.

“Today’s been a pretty quiet day. Pretty much things are running as usual,” she said, declining to give her name. “We’re scheduling patients as usual, and we have patients scheduled for the coming month.”

The woman answering the patient hot line Friday refused to say how many calls she had fielded, or what she had been instructed to tell patients. “I really can’t comment on it,” she said, declining to give her name.

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Attorneys for the three doctors said their clients spent the day after the lawsuit made national news secluded with their families for the three-day holiday weekend.

“Dr. Asch is extremely upset. Dr. Asch is attempting to relax with his family so he can return his life to apple-pie order next week,” lawyer Lloyd Charton said. “Dr. Asch wishes that this would go away. He’s spending a few days out of town with his family in an attempt to relax and restore order.”

Charton said Asch has received supportive phone calls from hundreds of patients in the week since the allegations have surfaced.

In response to the university’s amended lawsuit, Charton blasted administrators for focusing only on the three doctors, arguing that several other people--including university employees--handled patient records and harvested eggs at the clinic.

“Lots of different hands touch the eggs. Many other people are in charge of both the administrative procedures and the technical procedures,” Charton said. “To blame anybody but Dr. Asch is perhaps not as newsworthy. To blame Dr. Asch--world-renowned doctor does wrong thing--is, ‘Oh my gosh!’ ”

Times staff writers Lily Dizon, Ken Ellingwood and Susan Marquez Owen contributed to this report.