Victim Calls Assassination Attempt ‘Beyond Bizarre’

In his first interview since being shot in an apparent assassination attempt, the chief executive of an Irvine drug company said Wednesday he remains haunted by a masked assailant who fired a bullet into his face as he arrived for work.

Biofem Inc. head James Patrick Riley said he has adopted a low profile since the Feb. 28 shooting--screening phone calls, making sure his security alarms are working and keeping a loaded gun beside his bed. For a time, he hid in a hotel under an assumed name.

Riley has also had difficulty coming to terms with the police theory of the case: that his longtime business partner, Dr. Larry C. Ford, masterminded the plot to kill him. Riley, 58, said he still cannot fathom that anyone--let alone a friend he recalled as eccentric but endearing--would want him dead.

“It’s a disturbing thing really to think that someone wanted to kill you--planned to kill you. It’s beyond bizarre,” he said.

Frustrated that his attacker is still at large, Riley offers a $10,000 reward in the case and will appear this weekend on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

The shooting triggered one of the strangest investigations in Orange County history.

The chain of events began Feb. 28, when Riley pulled his car into a parking space in front of his office.

He and Ford were working on a female contraceptive they hoped would protect women from sexually transmitted diseases--including the AIDS virus--and make the two men rich.

Getting out of the car, Riley saw nothing unusual but inexplicably turned away from the building just as the single shot was fired.

“That saved my life,” he said.

A bullet tore into Riley’s upper lip and severed two facial arteries before ripping through his left cheek--just above his jaw. A hooded gunman clad in black fled past him, through the office complex.

As Riley recuperated, events surrounding the attempted murder were taking on a life of their own. The day of the shooting, police arrested a Los Angeles businessman and longtime friend of Ford as the suspected getaway car driver. Two days later, detectives searched Ford’s home in connection with the plot. On March 2, Ford shot and killed himself.