Biofem Twists: Surgeon Seized, Homes Searched

Dozens of heavily armed police, FBI agents and hazardous materials experts swarmed around a quiet Anaheim neighborhood Friday to question a surgeon in connection with the attempted murder of an Irvine businessman, marking another twist in the dizzying investigation.

The police moved in after a two-day surveillance operation that ended with a ruse designed to lure the doctor out of his house by bumping a dump truck into his parked motor home.

The elaborate maneuver comes a month after a masked gunman tried to kill James Patrick Riley, the CEO of Biofem Inc., in front of his Irvine Spectrum office.

The shooting sparked a chain of dramatic events including the suicide of Riley’s business partner, Dr. Larry C. Ford, after detectives searched his home. Police later evacuated more than 200 of Ford’s neighbors for several days while they unearthed a cache of weapons and explosives, as well as suspicious substances.

Detectives said Friday that they questioned the Anaheim surgeon, Dr. Jerry D. Nilsson, about the plot to kill Riley and that he cooperated with investigators. Police ruled out the possibility that he was the gunman. Colleagues described Nilsson as a longtime friend of Ford’s.

Irvine Lt. Sam Allevato said investigators obtained a search warrant for Nilsson’s home based on undisclosed information they’ve collected but will not arrest him unless they find incriminating evidence linking him to the plot.

“We have enough information to search his house. We’ve developed probable cause,” Allevato said.

With police sharpshooters perched atop a nearby church and a small army of SWAT officers standing by, detectives handcuffed Nilsson, 69, and took him away for questioning. Hazardous materials crews and the bomb squad spent the next five hours checking the house.

Authorities also went through a second house in Orange occupied by a friend of Nilsson’s in search of what Allevato said were business records. Detectives eventually removed boxes of papers from the garage. Neighbors said they had noticed police watching the house for about a week.

So far, prosecutors have charged a Los Angeles businessman with driving a van that picked up the identified gunman after Riley was shot. But the shooter remains at large. The twists and turns of the case have perplexed detectives and gained national attention.

“Until we get the shooter,” Allevato said, “it’s going to get a lot wackier.”

Many of the most bizarre aspects of the case have revolved around Ford. The doctor was tangentially involved in the South African military’s biological weapons program, and his attorney said Ford also worked for U.S. intelligence.

Ford was himself the victim of a shooting in the 1970s at UCLA, where he worked at the time. The assailant fired four shots at the doctor, who was saved from serious injury by cassette tapes in his breast pocket that blocked a bullet. The case has never been solved.

Ford and Riley became partners about a decade ago and were in the midst of developing a female contraceptive to protect women from sexually transmitted diseases. Police said they don’t know have a clear motive behind Riley’s shooting but believe it was done for financial gain of some kind.

The latest chapter in the case began Friday around noon. Trying to lure Nilsson outside, undercover officers driving a dump truck bumped into Nilsson’s motor home parked outside his house, according to sources close to the investigation. When an angry Nilsson emerged alone from the home, officers wrestled him to the ground, the sources said.

Officers had been staking out the house that Nilsson shares with a woman and her three children since Thursday. But determined to avoid a possible standoff, police waited until Nilsson was alone in the house before luring him out, Allevato said. But they never got a chance on Thursday and resumed their surveillance Friday morning.

Meanwhile, worried neighbors gazed from the frontyards of their ranch-style homes as heavily armed police trained their sights on the Deerwood Drive house and bomb squad officers searched for possible booby traps.

Given the discovery of “suspicious substances” and weapons at Ford’s Irvine home last month, police said they were concerned that Nilsson might also have such items. FBI and Anaheim Fire Department hazmat teams combed the house for any dangerous materials.

No weapons or materials were found at the house Friday, but the search is scheduled to continue today.

Friends described Nilsson as an avid gun collector and big-game hunter who made frequent safari trips to Africa. He and Ford had been friends for years, sharing a love of medicine and Africa. The two men would hang out at work and chat with one another, said Dr. John Magrann, an Anaheim general practitioner.

It was Nilsson’s close relationship that led detectives to first question the surgeon as they hunted for the masked gunman who shot Riley. Nilsson’s physique didn’t match the description of the slender assailant.

But after learning more from confidential sources, police said they decided to search Nilsson’s home for evidence that might link him in other ways to the conspiracy plot.

Nilsson, a general surgeon, lost his license Monday after the Medical Board of California acted on “gross negligence” allegations against him. Nilsson never answered the claims.

In a 10-page complaint, prosecutors charged that Nilsson sexually molested one patient and conducted an improper affair with another for more than a decade.

One of the patients claimed that Nilsson began a 16-year affair with her when she was a 14-year-old patient at Good Samaritan Hospital--now Western Medical Center-Anaheim, according to the complaint. A 20-year-old patient, the complaint said, accused Nilsson of drugged and sexually assaulting her four years ago when she visited him complaining of a fever.

Prosecutors with the state’s attorney general’s office were unable to serve Nilsson personally with the allegations but instead served his Stanton address that he had provided the medical board.

Nilsson will be unable to practice medicine in California once the board’s actions take effect April 26, said board spokeswoman Candis Cohen.

Times staff writers H.G. Reza and Willoughby Mariano contributed to this report.

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Police Search

Investigators scoured homes Friday in Anaheim and Orange in connection with the attempted murder of a businessman outside his Irvine Spectrum office a month ago.

Source: Irvine Police