Stone’s Fraud Trial Set to Begin Jan. 21

A UC Irvine doctor who is among three physicians implicated in the university’s fertility clinic scandal will be tried Jan. 21 on insurance fraud charges.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary L. Taylor set a trial date for Dr. Sergio C. Stone, 54, during a brief court appearance Friday.

John Barnett, Stone’s new defense attorney, said he may not be ready by the trial date.

Barnett, who represented LAPD Officer Ted Briseno in the 1992 state trial of four officers accused in the Rodney King beating, was hired to defend Stone after Taylor disqualified defense attorney Allan Stokke from representing the physician.

Taylor ruled that Stokke’s prior representation of Dr. Jose P. Balmaceda, another physician implicated in the scandal, posed a conflict of interest.

Stone and Balmaceda face 30 criminal counts of insurance fraud. An indictment accuses them of billing approximately $1,500 for services of medical personnel who either did not perform any procedures or were ineligible for reimbursement. They have denied any wrongdoing.

Balmaceda sold his Orange County home and returned to his native Chile. It is uncertain whether he plans to return to the United States to answer the charges against him.

Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, the clinic director who also sold his house and now lives in Mexico, has not been charged with a crime. Prosecutors say their investigation into the egg-swapping scandal is continuing.