If You’ve Got Deja Vu, Think Back to You-Know-Who

I’ve watched with a mixture of perverse interest and disbelief as the UC Irvine fertility scandal unfolded. So many twists and turns. No, I don’t know what really happened or who the true villains are, but I’m starting to hear some familiar strains in my ear.

The central figure in the fertility scandal is Ricardo H. Asch, former director of UCI’s Center for Reproductive Health. International reputation, charming bon vivant, heroic figure who brought joy to thousands. That was the prescandal Asch, given a wide berth by the system (UCI) because of the dollars and prestige the center brought the university.

The post-scandal Asch is portrayed differently. He is suddenly persona non grata. Former friends and colleagues now suggest he is manipulative, secretive, irresponsible, and not someone to be crossed.

Is this beginning to sound vaguely familiar? Remind you of some other case, perhaps?

Let me put it this way: Please tell me Asch does not have a Salvadoran housemaid or ever let Kato Kaelin stay at his home.

Please help me shake this image I have of his attorney donning a surgical mask and someday standing before a jury, imploring, “I am urgin’ that you acquit the surgeon.”

For months, Asch has been taking a public-relations pounding. Along with two former partners at the clinic, he is accused by the university and in numerous lawsuits of a range of misdeeds. Two weeks ago, Asch, saying he was tired of the brickbats, came out swinging at critics.

Blaming the university, unnamed former associates and the media, Asch said he considers himself a victim of the scandal. He has expressed sympathy for patients whose lives have been disrupted by the allegations of stolen eggs and embryos but said he too has been harmed.

Asch gave the interview from Mexico City, where he has lived since last fall after leaving his Santa Ana practice. I can confirm that he did not drive to Mexico City in a white Ford Bronco. The doctor, who continues to teach and do research in Mexico, said he had to leave Southern California because of the unrelenting verbal assault against him. He went on to say that he sold his two houses and his cars and that legal bills are draining him.

“To me, it’s a tremendous change of life that I don’t think I deserve,” he said in the recent interview. “I have given all my life over to helping people have children and to work in an academic environment to improve the field of reproductive medicine. . . . I hope this is what people are going to remember me for . . . and not about these things that I don’t bear full responsibility [for].”

Robert Kardashian could not have said it better if he’d been reading from a handwritten note in front of him.

Two different cases, to be sure. Accusations of professional impropriety are a far cry from a wrongful-death suit stemming from two homicides.

But is it just me, or does Dr. Asch sound eerily similar to you-know-who?

During the interview, Asch’s alibi was that he wasn’t in charge of the UCI paperwork. If serious improprieties were committed, he said, others made them.

In mounting his defense, Asch said he had no reason to do what he’s suspected of. He insisted he had an excellent relationship with his patients and had no motive for stealing eggs and embryos. He bristled when talking about the UCI administration, which he accused of using him as a “scapegoat.”

Asch said UCI has undertaken “a campaign to try and destroy my reputation rather than trying to present what Asch, the man, both as a professor at UCI and now, did . . . for science and the community.”

He blamed journalists for what he said was their ready acceptance of UCI’s version of events. “What I am amazed [about] is . . . during all of this process, from the moment it became public, I have not heard of any of the good things that I have done in life--never.”

As with that “other” case, lawyers are now taking depositions in the fertility scandal. Asch’s longtime biologist was deposed last week. Asch was deposed in January.

A UCI lawyer has said Asch is blowing smoke. “The man is the architect of his own situation,” the lawyer said.

It is impossible to say where this will wind up. Let’s hope not with a video selling for $29.95. As a student of another recent well-publicized legal spectacle, I would offer this suggestion to Asch: If it’s public support you want, don’t go with the “I’ve been framed” strategy.

And, please, above all else--don’t ever let your attorney speak in rhymes.

Dana Parsons’ columns appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.