Asch Was Involved in Inquiry Into Clinic

In what one attorney called “the fox guarding the henhouse,” testimony here Friday revealed that the former director of the troubled UC Irvine fertility clinic was allowed to participate in the first internal investigation of suspected wrongdoing at the clinic.

Stephany Ander, 49, a former senior administrator with UCI Medical Center, testified in the second day of her deposition that, after she aired concerns about mounting problems within the clinic and requested an audit, the director of the clinic attended a conference that addressed the audit’s initial results.

Ander presented attorneys with a document showing that in November 1992, Dr. Ricardo H. Asch was present when a team of internal auditors made known their initial findings of problems at the clinic, including alleged insurance fraud and financial misconduct.

The final audit was released in January 1993 and concluded no serious problems were evident.

“There he was, being apprised of the very issues they were looking at,” said Newport Beach attorney Walter Koontz, who represents some of the plaintiffs in the more than 40 lawsuits against Asch and UCI. “He was being allowed to participate in the direction of the audit. If that isn’t the fox guarding the henhouse, I don’t know what is.”

Clinic director Asch and his physician partners, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio Stone, are accused of taking the eggs and embryos of scores of women without their consent and implanting them in others. The doctors are the subject of seven separate investigations.

UCI has accused the doctors of insurance fraud, financial wrongdoing and research misconduct. All three have consistently denied any deliberate malfeasance.

According to the document Ander introduced Friday, auditors discussed their findings with Asch; Mary Piccione, the former executive director of UCI Medical Center; and her chief deputy, Herb Spiwak. Piccione and Spiwak have since been fired by UCI, and both have sued the university.

Ander testified Thursday that she requested the audit due partly to reports that patients were “bartering” eggs in exchange for medical treatment from Asch and his doctors. But the agenda of the November 1992, meeting made no mention of improprieties involving human eggs and embryos.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they were mystified as to why the misuse of eggs was never brought up at the conference Asch attended. For that matter, they said, few of the issues Ander raised in making her request for an internal audit were discussed at the meeting.

“I asked her specifically, ‘Isn’t it true that you didn’t raise it at the meeting because Dr. Asch was present?’ ” said Irvine attorney Lawrence Eisenberg, who represents several plaintiffs. “I said, ‘You would be afraid of your job because of how powerful and prestigious he was?’ She said, ‘Yes, it would be too confrontational.’ ”

Attorney Josefina Walker, who represented Asch at Friday’s deposition, said the doctor would “very much have wanted to know” about the misuse of eggs.

“He would have wanted to get to the bottom of the problem,” Walker said. “But how do you expect someone to be the solution when they don’t know about the problem?”

Norbert Giltner, a former clinic nurse, testified at a state Senate hearing last year that he told his superiors at UCI Medical Center in the fall of 1992 that eggs and embryos were being taken from patients without consent and implanted into others.

But Piccione, Spiwak and other university officials have said they were unaware of egg- and embryo-stealing--the most serious allegations within the scope of the scandal--until mid-1994.