Examining a Long History of Deception by ‘Doctor’

Before federal agents recently accused Gerald Barnes of masquerading as a doctor, the one-time 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 Dr. Gerald Barnes of Stockton--a real orthopedic surgeon--each time he was released, according to court documents, Department of Corrections records and interviews.

The real Dr. Gerald Barnes has said he did not know the man who is 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. Lisa Barnes, his current wife, said in a brief interview that she had no idea that the man she married in 1994 was not a doctor.

Lisa Barnes, who said she is in her 30s, 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 from her home in Los Angeles.

“He has treated me in a manner that no human being deserves to be treated,” she said in reference to Gerald Barnes’ alleged deceptions. “I just thank God we never had children.”

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.

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 jobs at the FBI. Barnes is being held without bail in Los Angeles County.

But records and interviews show that Barnes has been attempting to evade authorities--with limited success--for the past 20 years.

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

Just one year after his release from 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 of 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 from there in April 1986, according to 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, according to Peters.

He was released in November 1992, Department of Corrections records show. He began dating his current wife, Lisa, after his release and they married two years later, she said.

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 in an interview that his investigation shows Gerald Barnes also went under the names Jerold C. Barnes, Jerald C. Barnes and Gerald C. Barnes.

Copies of financial records the attorney, Ronald Cher, said he obtained from the clinic’s owner show a “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 Becky Darden, 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.

“Yes, he did work here, but it was a long time ago and we don’t want to talk about it,” said the manager, Claris Flowers. Flowers would not comment on how long Barnes worked at the clinic or why he left.

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, he said. Brandon said he was fooled, like so many who have come in contact with Barnes.

“[Of all the applicants], we all said we liked him the most. He is very charming, very personable. He seemed knowledgeable and mature,” Brandon said. “This whole thing has become a Keystone comedy. I mean, if the [FBI] can’t tell who this guy is, then I don’t know what the check procedures are all about. 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].”

Barnes’ personal life appears equally complicated.

B.J. Barnes, 31, whom Barnes adopted along with her twin sister, Ty, during his first marriage to a woman from Illinois, said she couldn’t help loving her father--even if she couldn’t always believe him.

“If you met him [during] his good times, he [was] a riot, an absolute blast,” said B.J. Barnes, who lives in Fremont with her sister. “But he got it in his head that he had to provide [for the family] no matter what. It’s almost as if he has no faith in his ability to do it legally, but my God, that man is incredible. He is a genius.”

Barnes’ 37-year-old son, Steve, who was born during that first marriage and now lives in Minnesota, said in an interview that his father’s legal problems have been hard on the family.

“We are close, but every time he goes to jail, it’s hard,” Steve Barnes said. “I love my father. Anyone who meets him adores him, but if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, there is something wrong. I hope he gets well.”

After divorcing Patti in 1973, Barnes married Marilyn Miller in 1975. It is unclear when the couple split, but in 1987 Barnes married Sonia Rose of Los Angeles, according to county marriage records and Barnes’ family members.

But that marriage ended in early 1989 after Sonia Rose Barnes filed for divorce, claiming in court papers that on Dec. 26, 1988, Barnes had tried to kill her with a kitchen knife, threatened to jump off a balcony and set the apartment’s carpet on fire.

In her request for support, Sonia Barnes said that Gerald Barnes was a “pharmacist working full time.” In fact, Barnes had graduated from a Chicago pharmacy college in 1958 but was stripped of his license in 1976 in connection with federal Medicaid charges of which he was acquitted.

Barnes’ current wife, Lisa, said she is devastated by Barnes’ alleged deceptions.

“I am very interested in seeing that this human being, if he can be called that, is not let out on the street to do harm to anybody else,” she said. “He is not welcome here under any circumstances.”