Fertility Clinic Doctor Says He Shares Responsibility

Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, a key figure in the UC Irvine fertility clinic scandal, concluded four days of sworn testimony Monday, acknowledging the grief of patients whose eggs and embryos apparently were taken without their consent and admitting that he shared some responsibility.

However, the physician stuck fast to his position that the University of California was primarily to blame for “errors” at his formerly renowned clinics--a stance that drew fire from university attorneys but little argument from lawyers for former patients who are suing him.

“They know the university is the deep pocket here,” said Karen Taillon, an attorney for Sergio C. Stone, one of Asch’s partners. “That’s the party you want to go after.”

Asch is under investigation for possible mail fraud, fertility drug smuggling and tax evasion in connection with his activities at a UC Irvine clinic and affiliated clinics, although no charges against him have been announced.

The doctor, who moved to Mexico last September, insisted on holding the deposition in Tijuana because he fears arrest in the United States. The deposition, intended for use in two dozen lawsuits by patients, is not nearly complete. But, though they complained often during the daylong sessions that Asch was evasive, some patients’ lawyers got what they came for.

“I can prove my cases, no doubt,” said patients’ attorney Larry Eisenberg, speaking before television cameras after questioning Asch for three hours. “I see a total breakdown in the management of these medical facilities.”

UC attorney Byron Beam said the university’s liability in the scandal should not be judged by the statements of Asch, who along with two partners is accused of stealing the eggs and embryos of scores of women in three Southern California clinics and giving them to other patients.

“This [deposition] gave me absolutely nothing,” Beam said. Asch stands to gain by admitting negligence, rather than intentional wrongdoing, because the university must pay for his defense if he is only negligent, attorneys said.

Beach said upcoming depositions of former clinic employees, some of whom Asch specifically blamed for errors at his clinics, will provide a very different perspective on the doctor’s practice.

Beam also accused patients’ attorneys of going soft on the doctor by failing to ask essential “pointed questions.” One of those, he said, is how Asch could claim to know nothing of patients’ wishes when the process of egg donation must be so carefully planned.

Beam explained that a variety of drugs and hormones must be administered to donors and recipients. A doctor would have to be closely involved in preparing each patient, he said.

Many of the attorneys attending the proceedings said they did not have a chance to put their questions to Asch.

Asch’s attorney, Lloyd Charton, cut short the scheduled questioning by more than an hour Monday but agreed to make Asch available at another, unspecified time.

Some attorneys, including Beam, complained over the four days that the deposition had degenerated into a sideshow. Saturday, after an unknown person phoned in a bomb threat, causing the deposition room to be evacuated, the stenographer’s notes were stolen. The notes were later found in a hotel lounge.

Asch created a small stir when he testified Monday that in the summer of 1994, he was tipped off by UC Irvine officials to a whistle-blower’s charges that eggs and embryos were being misappropriated.

He testified that he first learned of the allegations when he overheard a conversation during a meeting with university officials in July 1994. Later, Asch testified, he was told by medical school Dean Tom Cesario that whistle-blower Debra Krahel had records indicating possible egg misappropriation and was about to take the matter to a newspaper. The conversation was arranged by Mary Piccione, former executive director of the medical center, Asch said.

Krahel said Monday that the university, by informing Asch of her supposedly confidential complaint, violated the state whistle-blower law.