History of a Long Medical Masquerade

Before federal agents recently accused Gerald Barnes of masquerading as a doctor, the onetime Orange County resident worked in two Los Angeles clinics undetected by authorities, even though he had spent four terms in prison for related crimes, records and interviews show.

Although Barnes was sent to state prison in 1981, 1984, 1989 and 1991 for convictions related to his continued practice of masquerading as a doctor, it appears he was able to work as a physician using the medical license number of the real Dr. Gerald Barnes--a Stockton orthopedic surgeon--each time he was released, according to court documents, Department of Corrections records and interviews.

The real Dr. Gerald Barnes has said that he did not know the man charged with impersonating him and that it is “mind-boggling that this could happen again.”

The suspect was also able to fool his wives and relatives. His current wife, Lisa Barnes of Los Angeles, said she had no idea that the man she married in 1994 was not a doctor.

Lisa Barnes also maintained that she was not aware that her husband had been married at least three times before he married her. She said she believed she was Barnes’ third wife, but marriage records and interviews show she is his fourth.

“He could charm the socks off of any human being,” Lisa Barnes said in a telephone interview.

Anthony Eaglin, the deputy federal public defender appointed to represent Gerald Barnes, said that “at this point I am not willing to make a statement” on past or present charges against Barnes or his alleged work at medical clinics.

Prosecutors said their investigation into Barnes is continuing.

Barnes, 62, was arrested April 15 and charged with fraud and practicing medicine without a license at the Executive Health Group, a downtown medical center, where he allegedly worked as a physician from July 1995 to April 10 of this year. Among his responsibilities, according to a criminal complaint, were performing physical examinations on FBI agents and candidates for FBI jobs.

But records and interviews show that Barnes has been playing a game of chicken with authorities for the last 20 years.

After serving 18 months in state prison for an involuntary manslaughter conviction in connection with the 1981 death of a diabetic patient whom he misdiagnosed at an Irvine clinic, Barnes began practicing medicine again.

Just one year after his release from state prison in January 1983, Barnes began working as a physician at Cameron Medical Group in West Covina, earning $5,000 a month from February to April 1984, officials said.

He was arrested in June of that year, pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft for accepting a salary as a doctor, and was sent back to the California Institution for Men at Chino. He was released in April 1986, said Kevin Peters, a spokesman for the facility.

By 1989, Barnes was back in jail again, this time for grand theft in San Bernardino County, according to Department of Corrections records. Released in March 1991, Barnes was sent back to Chino in October 1991 for violating his parole, Peters said.

He was released in November 1992, Department of Corrections records show.

Despite his four previous jail terms, Barnes nevertheless kept seeking--and landing--jobs as a physician at small health clinics. In 1993, Barnes allegedly worked at another downtown Los Angeles clinic, Bio Medics.

An attorney who won a default judgment against Bio Medics and Barnes over an alleged injury to a client whom he claimed was in Barnes’ care when a bed collapsed, said that his investigation shows Gerald Barnes also went under the names Jerold C. Barnes, Jerald C. Barnes and Gerald C. Barnes.

Copies of the financial records that the attorney, Ronald Cher, said he obtained from the clinic’s owner show that “Jerold Barnes” received a salary from Bio Medics in 1994.

The Social Security number for Jerold Barnes listed on those financial records is the same one recorded with the California Department of Corrections for Gerald Barnes on documents related to his 1984 conviction, according to a department official.

Reached in his Stockton office, the real Dr. Barnes said he never worked at Bio Medics or examined any patients there.

The current manager of the Bio Medics clinic, which has moved to Compton, confirmed that a Jerold Barnes was employed at the clinic in 1993.

In June 1994, Barnes answered an advertisement placed by the Brandon Medical Group in Hollywood. The owner of the clinic, Scott Brandon said he asked Barnes to show him a copy of his medical license.

When Barnes produced the number, Brandon said he called the Medical Board of California to confirm that it was valid. Brandon said a Medical Board official told him the number was valid, but unbeknown to Brandon, it belonged to the Stockton orthopedist.

Brandon said he hired Barnes but fired him within two weeks when he could not produce proof of medical malpractice insurance, a Drug Enforcement Agency license number for prescribing medicine and his medical license certificate.

Even then, however, Brandon did not realize that Barnes was not a physician.

“This whole thing has become a Keystone comedy,” he said. “I mean, why in the hell didn’t the Medical Board flag him if he is such a fraud?”

Joan Jerzak, supervising investigator for the Medical Board of California, said there is not much the agency can do about purposeful frauds such as the ones of which Barnes was convicted.

“The medical board is alerted whenever there is a consumer complaint,” Jerzak said. “[Barnes] could show up tomorrow in San Francisco and apply to an advertisement [at a clinic] and we wouldn’t be able to track [him].”