Clinic Chief Lashes UCI in Legal Reply : Courts: Dr. Ricardo Asch’s attorney maintains the university sued his client and two other fertility specialists to cover up its own flaws.

An attorney for embattled fertility specialist Dr. Ricardo H. Asch lashed out at UC Irvine on Monday in a court filing accusing university officials of a “pattern of despicable conduct” and “unprecedented . . . abuse of the judicial process.”

Irvine attorney Ken E. Steelman alleges UC Irvine paid “hush money” to whistle-blowers, trespassed on private property, violated patient confidentiality and sued clinic doctors in an attempt to cover up its own “outrageous conduct” in the UC Irvine fertility scandal.

The allegations constitute the first detailed response in court papers by Asch and his attorneys to the university’s May 25 lawsuit, which accused the famed fertility specialist and his two partners at UCI’s Center for Reproductive Health of misappropriating human eggs, and financial and research misconduct.

The university’s suit also accused the trio of blocking the university’s efforts to recover patient and other records, and asked a judge to issue an order forcing their release.

Through their attorneys, Asch and his partners, Drs. Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone, have denied knowingly engaging in wrongdoing. Balmaceda and Stone have refuted the allegations in the media, but Asch, on the advice of his attorneys, has remained silent.

Robert Rostein, one of the Los Angeles attorneys representing UC Irvine, said Monday that the university remains “confident in its legal position.”

The allegations by Asch’s attorney “are so extraordinary, they’re ludicrous,” Rostein said. “It sounds to me like another attempt by Dr. Asch to avoid allowing the university to get to the bottom of what happened at the Center for Reproductive Health.”

In documents filed in Orange County Superior Court on Monday, Steelman contended that the university’s lawsuit is defective and amounts to a publicity stunt.

UC Irvine’s “desire to manipulate the media has resulted in a carelessly pleaded, legally insufficient complaint, intended to evoke public reaction, rather than state a legal cause of action,” he wrote.

The university, he argues, does not own patient records and has no right to them, so it cannot accuse the doctors of unlawfully taking or withholding them.

He states that handing over patients’ records would constitute a breach of confidentiality. “Asch has a duty to a patient . . . not to disclose privileged communications,” Steelman wrote.

UC Irvine has contended that the medical center was one of the providers of care to patients and, as such, is entitled to review patient records.

Steelman stated in court documents that the university already has trespassed at the fertility clinic and violated patient confidentiality. He could not be reached Monday, but his partner, David Brown, explained this allegation stems from the university actions in late April, when he said UC Irvine officials took patient records from the clinic and copied them.

Steelman and Brown also contended the university used “extortion” against the doctors, threatening to report them to the state licensing board and to criminal authorities unless they turned over records.