Doctors’ Papers Seized in Fertility Clinic Probe : Investigation: Local, state and U.S. officials raid offices and two homes of former UC Irvine specialists. Lawyers for the physicians say action was unwarranted.

Scores of law enforcement officers raided the medical offices of three doctors embroiled in the UC Irvine fertility clinic scandal early Tuesday, seizing boxes of records and personal items.

Led by the FBI, investigators also searched a storage facility and the upscale homes of two of the physicians. After serving search warrants, the investigators from at least seven different federal, state and local agencies collected everything from personal tax returns and checkbooks to patient records and a child’s personal computer from the various locations.

“They searched the whole house . . . bedrooms, the garage--they even searched the trash,” said Ronald G. Brower, attorney for Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, who was summoned by Asch’s family at 6:30 a.m. to the doctor’s $850,000 stucco home in the gated community of Big Canyon in Newport Beach. “It was so unnecessary.”

Brower said he had offered on two occasions to hand over any documents or other items sought by the U.S. attorney’s office, for which the FBI conducted the search. But his offers, he said, were rebuffed by Deputy U.S. Atty. Wayne Gross. Gross did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment Tuesday.

The three doctors are accused of misappropriating human eggs and embryos, pocketing patient fees owed to UC Irvine Medical Center and billing insurance companies fraudulently. Asch is also accused of prescribing a fertility medication not approved for use in the United States.

The doctors have denied any knowing wrongdoing. The UC Irvine clinic closed in June.

Attorneys for physicians Sergio C. Stone and Jose P. Balmaceda complained that the raids were a waste of taxpayers’ money and amount to publicity stunts.

“No one has ever told us of the interest in having the documents nor has any request been made by federal agencies for these documents,” said Stone’s attorney, Karen Taillon, in a prepared statement. “The actions are highly inappropriate. It could have been done in less dramatic ways and possibly was only done in this way for show.”

Balmaceda’s attorney, Patrick Moore, said federal officials needed only to subpoena the records they sought.

But investigators contend they have been stymied repeatedly in their pursuit of records.

State auditor Kurt Sjoberg said the raids summed up the frustration of all the investigating agencies at obtaining documents in the case. He said his office has been battling the physicians’ attorneys for financial and tax records and office documents for three months.

“I think there’s sort of a common agreement that the [doctors’] attorneys are keeping us from full and unfettered access,” said Sjoberg, whose office began investigating after a whistle-blower complaint but was not involved in Tuesday’s searches.

FBI officials refused to confirm how many locations were searched or how many investigators were involved. But a source close to the investigation said officials targeted six locations. U.S. Customs alone dispatched 30 agents, an agency official said. A contingent of at least 20 agents and officers from various agencies arrived at Asch’s front door, Brower said.

Agencies involved in the searches included the FBI, the U.S. Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Medical Board of California, UC Irvine police, the U.S. Customs Service and local police agencies.

The agents removed 35 boxes from Asch’s home--even taking a home computer owned by Asch’s children, Brower said. He said Asch was at a meeting away from home when agents arrived, but that his wife, Silvia, and three of his children were awakened by the investigators.

Brower said the agents were “professional and courteous” and that Silvia Asch was “surprised [but] totally cooperative,” even playing a videotape for agents at their request.

But Brower questioned the timing of the raid, saying that if agents were so concerned about destruction of evidence, they would have acted earlier.

All told, the officials left with 53 items, Brower said, including financial information about Asch’s horse-racing activities, an inventory of frozen eggs, personal checkbooks and tax records, Brower said.

The search warrant served on the home made multiple references to insurance records and billing under the federal Champus program that serves military dependents. The warrant cited documents “that tend to reflect compliance [with] . . . or evasion and attempts to evade” federal, state and private insurance regulations.

The warrant covered activities not only at UC Irvine, but also at AMI/Garden Grove Medical Center and a third firm called Bio-Diagnostics. It sought passports and visas, calendars and diaries, “large amounts of currency” and safe deposit keys.

Agents seized two boxes of documents from Asch’s Santa Ana medical office near Western Medical Center. They also raided Balmaceda’s clinic in Laguna Hills and CPN Medical Management in Tustin.

Federal and state agents arrived at Balmaceda’s Laguna Hills office, leased from Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, about 7 a.m., according to Jennifer Lefebvre, a spokeswoman for the medical center.

They presented search warrants to security guards, then were allowed to enter the six-floor Saddleback Medical Tower, adjacent to the medical center.

The search lasted about five hours, ending about noon, Lefebvre said, noting that federal and state agents declined to inform hospital personnel of what it was they were taking.

In addition, authorities searched Stone’s Laguna Beach home and raided the storage facility containing patient records, a source said.

Times staff writers Tracy Weber, Michael Granberry and Martin Miller contributed to this story.