Egg Theft Charged in UCI Fertility Case

Federal prosecutors announced new charges Tuesday against two of the UC Irvine fertility clinic doctors at the center of an international scandal, accusing the clinic’s former director for the first time of stealing human eggs from some patients and implanting them in other unsuspecting women.

Ten of 40 new charges against Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, the scandal’s central figure, accused him of misappropriating the eggs of some former patients at UCI’s now-defunct Center for Reproductive Health.

Another 10 counts in a freshly unsealed indictment accused Asch of treating patients with an Argentine fertility drug not approved for use in the United States.

Asch and one of his former partners, Jose P. Balmaceda, were also hit with 20 new counts of mail fraud, accusing them of concocting false hospital records so they could bill insurance firms for fertility services that were not covered by their patients’ insurance.

None of the charges against Balmaceda involved egg stealing or selling unlicensed drugs.

Both Asch and Balmaceda left the country last year even before they were indicted on mail fraud charges for a separate insurance billing scheme.

Attorneys for the two doctors, who have previously proclaimed their clients’ innocence, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

But prosecutors vowed to seek the doctors’ extradition, so that they can face trial in a U. S. court.

“The United States looks forward to having the opportunity to present the evidence in a trial so a jury can determine their guilt or innocence,” said Assistant U. S. Atty. Thomas H. Bienert Jr., the lead prosecutor in the case.

The new indictments, unsealed Tuesday by U. S. Attorney Nora Manella in Los Angeles, followed last month’s conviction of the third doctor in the partnership, Sergio C. Stone, on nine counts of mail fraud.

Stone, who is in federal custody pending sentencing next February, is planning to appeal his conviction.

In a press release, Manella said a federal grand jury handed down the latest indictments of Asch and Balmaceda during Stone’s trial, but authorities kept it under seal to avoid potential prejudice to Stone.

Although the issue of egg and embryo thefts surfaced more than two years ago, it had never been addressed in the formal charges against any of the doctors until the latest indictment of Asch.

The first round of charges filed last year accused the three doctors of mail fraud for submitting inflated or otherwise incorrect bills to insurance companies, which were billed for attending physicians who were not actually present or unlicensed to practice medicine in the U.S.

In the latest indictment, prosecutors alleged that Asch plotted to fraudulently obtain human eggs from some patients so that he could implant those eggs in other women who had difficulty getting pregnant, the indictment alleged.

“In order to increase the likelihood that patients who could produce eggs would” use his services, Asch would assure them that their eggs would be used only as they wished, the indictment states.

“In fact, even after patients expressly indicated their refusal to allow their eggs to be given to other patients, . . . Asch knowingly and intentionally provided their eggs to [other women].”

According to the indictment, Asch told women impregnated with stolen eggs that they were the beneficiaries of “willing volunteers.”

Prosecutors contend that Asch illegally used the U. S. mail in furtherance of this scheme to misappropriate human eggs, because he mailed insurance claims, hospital bills and other records involving the surgical procedures.

Bienert, the federal prosecutor who heads the U.S. attorney’s office in Santa Ana, said Asch was charged with using the mail to carry out his scheme because no federal criminal statute addresses theft of human tissue. Mail fraud statutes sufficiently “encompass the variety of fraud employed by Dr. Asch,” Bienert said.

The second indictment accused both Asch and Balmaceda of falsely billing insurance companies for fertility procedures that were not covered by their patients’ insurance.

According to the indictment, Asch and Balmaceda created false paperwork to get the insurance companies to pay for some operations in which patients were impregnated. Both doctors knew that insurance companies would not pay for such “elective” procedures so they had their staff bill for operations that were covered by the insurance firms.

Attorneys for the doctors’ former patients on Tuesday applauded the latest action.

“This is the first step in bringing them back to stand trial,” said Melanie Blum, an Orange attorney who has negotiated civil settlements for some of her 35 clients caught in the scandal. “Nothing would give my clients greater pleasure than to see these doctors brought back in shackles to face trial for the horrendous acts that were committed.”

Lawrence Eisenberg, an Irvine lawyer for another 25 patients, said the new charges alleging human egg-theft by Asch put “a whole new twist” on the fertility scandal.

“All patients whose eggs and embryos were misappropriated should find some comfort in this development,” Eisenberg said.

So far, UCI has paid $15 million to dozens of women whose eggs were stolen, according to Eisenberg.

The scandal centered on allegations that the doctors stole eggs from women undergoing fertility treatments in four Southern California medical facilities from the late 1980s through the early 1990s, implanting the eggs in other women and funneling others into research.

In some instances, children were conceived and born without the knowledge of women whose eggs were taken.

Asch, a native of Argentina, is reportedly running a fertility clinic in Mexico City. Balmaceda was also known to be running a similar practice in his native Chile.

Bienert, said the United States has extradition treaties with both countries. He said the U.S. attorney’s office will work with Office of International Affairs, a federal agency that processes requests for extradition, to get Asch and Balmaceda extradited to the United States.