Audit Faults Ex-Director of Cadaver Program

A UC Irvine audit released Wednesday found that the former director of the medical school’s cadaver program misappropriated money and tried to cover it up.

The 29-page audit portrays a Willed Body Program in disarray under Christopher Brown, who was later fired by the university, with poor record keeping and little supervision from the professors above him.

The audit supports previous allegations and adds details, including accusations that Brown performed an unauthorized autopsy in the Willed Body lab for his sister-in-law’s sociology of death class, that he improperly solicited cash donations to the program and that he overcharged UC Irvine for travel costs.

The audit also found overcharges of several hundred dollars by Harry’s Transportation for carrying cadavers. The company was owned by Jeffrey Frazier, a business associate of Brown.

The previously obscure Willed Body Program, which handles cadavers that the university uses for research, broke into the news 15 months ago when a routine audit found that Brown had charged the university for a trip to Phoenix and sold spines to a hospital there. The check for the bones was made out to University Health Services, a company Frazier owned.

The audit confirmed earlier media reports that donated cadavers were used without university permission in a private anatomy class in the Willed Body morgue and that families may have received the wrong remains or been improperly billed for the return of their relatives’ ashes. Frazier owned Replica Notes, the firm that sponsored the anatomy class.

In an e-mail message Wednesday to The Times, Brown said, “The school can ‘say’ whatever it wants (they’ve been doing it for over a year now!) . . . Let’s see how they do when all is said and done in court!”

Brown has previously said that he was a scapegoat and that his superiors knew what was going on.

Brown’s attorney, Melvyn D. Sacks, called the results of the audit “the same old allegations. It’s just the university protecting their rear ends from lawsuits from these people who donated bodies that aren’t accounted for.”

Frazier’s attorney, Joe Hartley, declined to comment.

A criminal investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office is continuing. No charges have been filed in the case.

In a letter to UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph Cicerone that accompanied the audit, College of Medicine Dean Thomas C. Cesario said the audit “found no evidence that donated bodies were used for anything other than scientific, research or academic purposes.”

After the allegations surfaced, the program, which used about 75 cadavers a year, shut down for almost six months. UC Irvine began accepting bodies again in April. Cesario said that because of the publicity, the program has received more interest from potential donors than ever.

UC Irvine has tightened up the program, with written policies, an advisory group, a system for tracking body parts, greater supervision and a more experienced program director making almost twice Brown’s yearly salary of $33,000.

The UC Irvine auditors could account for only 121 of the 441 cadavers donated to the program for medical and scientific research from Jan. 1, 1995, through Aug. 11, 1999. Those dates indicate that there were record-keeping problems before Brown, a funeral director, became head of the program in May 1996.

The report lays out case after case in which auditors “believe” that Brown and Frazier improperly took money from the program. For instance, three families paid to have ashes returned but there was no record that the school received the funds. One family said they paid Brown cash and the other two said they wrote the checks to “Harry’s Transport” and “UCT.”

“We believe these payments were misappropriated by Mr. Brown,” the report says.

Auditors said Brown gave the spines to Frazier for sale to the researcher at the Phoenix hospital.

“We believe Mr. Brown and Mr. Frazier intended to keep the money collected from this sale, and that Mr. Brown made efforts to cover up this activity.”

As a result of the misplaced bodies, about 20 lawsuits have been filed against UC Irvine, Brown and Frazier. When attorneys tried to depose Brown on Nov. 15, he invoked his 5th Amendment protections on all questions. Brown, 28, is representing himself in the lawsuits. He has declared bankruptcy and is working as a bouncer. He is engaged in a rancorous arbitration fight with UC Irvine to get his job back.