UC Regents Fire Professor Involved in Fertility Case

The University of California Board of Regents on Thursday fired Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, cleansing its faculty ranks of the third and final physician involved in the UC Irvine fertility scandal.

The rare act of punishment against a tenured professor completes a long, tortuous process that involved a criminal investigation, federal indictments and lengthy administrative hearings by faculty peers.

“It’s taken a long time, but we have finally put the matter behind us,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, chancellor of the Irvine campus. “We take tenure seriously, but there are limits.”

Asch and his partners at the now defunct UC Irvine fertility clinic have been accused of underreporting income and of stealing human eggs and embryos that were implanted in unsuspecting women or funneled into research.

Thursday’s vote, taken behind closed doors, was only the fifth time that the regents have dismissed a tenured professor since the late 1950s. That’s when then-UC President Clark Kerr pushed through lifetime tenure to protect professors who had refused to sign anti-Communist loyalty oaths.

Asch, a native of Argentina, now has a thriving fertility medical practice in Mexico City, his lawyer said. He fled the country several years ago to escape prosecution after the federal government indicted him on charges of mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud patients of their genetic material.

Although Asch, 52, was unavailable for comment, his attorney, Lloyd Charton, said the doctor was disappointed but not surprised by the outcome.

“Dr. Asch did not do anything wrong,” Charton said. “He did not commit any acts of unethical behavior. Dr. Asch is a surgeon. He did what he was supposed to do: Put eggs from Lady A into Lady B. All of the problems were clerical in nature. UCI failed to provide better administrative paperwork and clerical assistance.”

Yet Asch does not intend to fight his termination in court, Charton said. “Dr. Asch is going to put this matter behind him and allow the litigation to end.”

Yet Asch remains a fugitive from justice under federal indictment. He also is one of three defendants named in a lawsuit by the University of California to recoup more than $20 million that the university has paid to settle lawsuits by more than 100 infertile couples, including dozens who had their eggs given to other women without their permission.

Under current UC policy, it takes years to dismiss a tenured professor.

D. Sergio Stone, one of Asch’s partners, was fired by the regents in March after a 4 1/2-year process. Stone, who remained in Southern California after being convicted of fraudulently billing insurance companies, is fighting his termination in a lawsuit against the university.

A third partner, Dr. Jose P. Balmaceda, never had a tenured position. UC officials let his contract expire. Balmaceda, who also fled prosecution, now runs a fertility clinic in his native Chile.

Asch had been on the Irvine faculty for nine years when he was suspended in May 1995, shortly after the scandal erupted when a whistle-blower accused Asch and his colleagues of underreporting income. The regents stopped his paychecks, beginning in January 1996.

One reason that it took five years for his dismissal was that UC Irvine postponed the disciplinary process during a lengthy criminal investigation.

Once the internal review resumed, officials tried to resolve issues informally. After that failed, the case slowly moved to a formal hearing before the faculty Senate’s Committee on Privilege and Tenure.

The committee held lengthy hearings and generated thousands of pages of testimony and documents before recommending that Asch be terminated. Besides being represented by a lawyer, Asch made a personal plea for his case via teleconference from Mexico. He would have been subject to arrest if he had returned to the United States to plead his case in person.

Chancellor Cicerone agreed that Asch deserved to be fired and forwarded the recommendation to UC President Richard C. Atkinson. Atkinson then forwarded it to the Board of Regents--the entity given sole authority over dismissing tenured faculty.

Speculating that Asch might show up to make a personal appeal to the regents, UC officials alerted the U.S. Marshal’s Service. Asch never showed.

Under confidentiality rules, none of the proceedings were public. Neither the regents nor UC administrators would publicly discuss grounds for his termination.

“I cannot comment on the specifics of any case,” Cicerone said.

The university issued a statement, however, saying that Asch and his partners “failed to accurately report income from clinical services they had performed at UCI. As a result the doctors did not pay what they owed the university under the UC Medical School Clinical Compensation Plan.”

In an independent assessment, the state auditor’s office determined that the three physicians owed the university about $1.7 million for underreported income from their partnership with the university.

Atkinson said he would like to make changes so that disciplinary cases are resolved more quickly.

“Clearly, it takes too long,” he said. “We are going to focus on reforming our whole process.”