Irvine Veterinarian Struggles to Counter Abuse Allegations

Life is touch-and-go at T.H.E. Cat Hospital of Irvine these days.

Tom Elston, the reigning veterinarian, is back doing what he loves best--operating on small, furry animals, dispensing advice to their owners and occasionally scraping the plaque off sharp little feline teeth.

But the hospital lobby, once teeming with mewing patients, is quieter now. And Elston’s once-sterling reputation as one of the premier cat doctors in the country has been tarnished.

“We may be forced to close our doors,” said Elston, 50, who opened the animal hospital and kennel in 1993.

At the root of the problem is a question that tears at the heart of the veterinary calling--is this healer of animals a man who also abuses them? Specifically, did he get so angry at a patient that he stomped on it, swung it by the tail and choked it until its tongue turned blue?

A former employee swears that he did, even though the animal was not injured.

Elston denies it, characterizing his actions as legitimate attempts to restrain an out-of-control animal that were misunderstood by an inexperienced observer. A court of law ultimately agreed with him. Yet before being exonerated, the veterinarian--one of about 45 certified cat doctors in the country and a nationally recognized pioneer in the field--had his license suspended for 100 days.

The interruption caused a 30% dip in a practice that once saw 400 animals a month. And it caused concern among fellow practitioners who say that it could just as easily have happened to them.

The ordeal that could put Elston out of business began on a Wednesday in 1996. One of the kennel’s boarders that day was a cat named Mickey, a male that needed medication.

“I went to get him out of his cage and he freaked out,” Elston recalled. “He started throwing himself against the side of the cage, escaped, ran frantically around the treatment room.”

Eventually, the vet was able to regain control by grabbing the cat’s tail, pinning the animal underfoot and, finally, holding it by the scruff of the neck, he said. In the process, he said, both he and an aide were badly bitten. “At that point,” Elston said, “I had control of him and was determined that he wouldn’t get away.”

But a part-time hospital employee saw it differently. Vanessa Charfen, then 15, was a high school student who wanted to be a veterinarian. What she observed that day, however, shocked and upset her.

“Right after it happened I just took off, went into the bathroom and cried to myself for quite a while,” recalls Charfen, now 17. “I came home that night in tears and didn’t know what to do.”

What she did was call the Irvine Police Department, which sent animal control officers to investigate. The matter might have ended there, but for an incident witnessed by a driver for the city’s animal control department a few months later.

The driver was delivering an animal to the hospital when he saw Elston giving chemotherapy to a cat. When the cat tried to escape, the driver said, Elston held it by one leg and at one point smacked it. Elston agrees that he grabbed the cat’s leg, but denies hitting it.

In any case, the second complaint was enough for Irvine police to turn the case over to the district attorney’s office.

After being charged in Harbor Municipal Court with misdemeanor cruelty to animals, the veterinarian agreed to a plea bargain that he now says was a major mistake. In exchange for pleading guilty and agreeing to take a course in anger management, Elston said, the court promised that the conviction would be dismissed. But then news of the guilty plea reached the California Veterinary Medical Board in Sacramento.

“Cruelty is something that sets off alarm bells,” said Susan Geranen, executive officer of the board that licenses veterinarians statewide. “It’s the worst violation for veterinarians.”

The board immediately suspended Elston’s license pending the outcome of the case. That triggered a civil hearing before an administrative law judge, who decided that although Elston was not guilty of criminal cruelty toward animals, he had acted below the standards of his profession. The judge upheld a temporary suspension of Elston’s license.

Elston appealed to the Superior Court. In November, a judge absolved the veterinarian of all guilt.

The testimony against him, the judge ruled, was not credible because neither of the cats involved had suffered any injuries.

“The allegations didn’t make any sense,” his attorney, Richard Vilkin, said. “I don’t know why these charges were brought forward--it shouldn’t have happened.”

Elston recently filed a lawsuit against the city of Irvine and several of its animal control officers charging them with filing “false and/or misleading police reports” that resulted in the actions against him.

A Police Department spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit or the city’s earlier investigation of the complaints against Elston.

And fellow veterinarians say the case has raised fears that what happened to Elston could happen to anyone.

“All of us have restrained aggressive animals in ways that we would have preferred not to,” said Gayle R. Roberts, one of nine veterinarians--virtually the city’s entire population of animal doctors--who signed a letter supporting Elston.