A Doctor, a Deal Maker and a Mystery

They had planned to be rich by now, the doctor and the businessman.

In December 1997, Dr. Larry C. Ford and his Biofem Inc. partner, James Patrick Riley, issued a 29-page business blueprint filled with ambitious details about how their Inner Confidence female contraceptive would give women a “proven method of protecting themselves” from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

By now, according to the plan, Inner Confidence should have been on store shelves. Sales should have been booming, surpassing $46 million by year’s end. And Ford and Riley, as founding partners, should have been raking in the cash.

Instead, Ford is dead and Riley is in hiding.

In a bizarre case that becomes even more so as time goes on, police say Ford, a soft-spoken researcher and observant Mormon, may have been behind a plot to kill Riley, who was shot through the face as he arrived for work at Biofem’s Irvine Spectrum office Feb. 28.

That in itself seems incredible to those who knew Ford, 49, who apparently killed himself three days after Riley, 58, was shot. But then, Ford’s friends were unaware of many aspects of the doctor’s life, including the illegal weapons and military explosives he buried in the side yard and his tangential involvement with South Africa’s apartheid-era biological weapons programs.

“It’s pretty baffling,” said Raymond Lee, Biofem’s attorney, who is in regular contact with Riley. “We talk daily, and each time we’re both going, ‘I don’t get it.’ ”

As investigators struggle to unravel the disparate threads of the case, from secret weapons caches to suspected biological samples stored in an Irvine refrigerator, those living in the circles of Ford’s and Riley’s lives are left with more questions than answers.

The doctor and the businessman hailed from starkly different backgrounds.

Ford was born and raised in Mormon country--Provo, Utah. A family story about how he and his future wife came together squeaks with wholesomeness.

“They met at a Sunday school party, playing Twister. It was my dad’s game,” said his son, Larry C. Ford Jr., a microbiology major at Brigham Young University. That game has become a running family joke. “We still have it at the house, so my sister was never allowed to play with that game with boys.”

After graduating from high school, during which he won a national student research award, the elder Ford completed studies at BYU and then moved with his wife to Los Angeles about 1970 to enter UCLA Medical School.

The young couple decided to make their life on the West Coast, starting a family in Los Angeles before moving to Irvine in 1987. Ford completed his medical studies at UCLA in 1975 and stayed on to teach, practice medicine and conduct research.

One part of his life, police said, led someone to try to kill him.

An Unsolved Assault on Ford

About 1978, a gunman hid in bushes outside a UCLA parking garage late one night and opened fire on Ford as he approached his car. Four bullets missed. A fifth struck Ford in the breast pocket, where a stack of cassette tapes deflected it.

Ford sought to play down the incident with investigators, said Arthur Longo, a retired detective with the UCLA Police Department. Neither a motive nor a suspect was ever found.

The incident didn’t seem to disrupt Ford’s work. He eventually authored or co-authored dozens of scholarly articles on such disparate topics as gynecological cancers and the use of antibiotics to control postoperative infections.

He also was coming up with product ideas, including a method for reducing scarring and a potion, drafted from a student’s research, to cure male baldness.

And he was lecturing. In the mid-’80s Ford delivered a lecture to UC Irvine medical students and faculty through a distinguished-speaker program.

“He was considered a real authority on gynecological infectious diseases,” said Dr. Philip J. DiSaia, director of the division of gynecologic oncology at UCI Medical Center.

While Ford was moving into his medical career, Riley was moving into business.

Riley, an Illinois native, studied science as an undergraduate at Cal State Long Beach but apparently didn’t pursue it as a career.

In 1973, at age 32, he became the founding chief executive officer of First Meridian Financial Corp. in Newport Beach, brokering securities and insurance, according to a Biofem biography. He sold off portions of that company in 1987, when sales topped $25 million, and spent the next three years as part of a management team for ToppMed Inc., marketing a weight-loss dietary supplement.

Riley was busy with side projects too, establishing a series of limited partnerships in the ‘80s to invest in real estate, including a firm called White Oak Partners Ltd., which bought 300 acres of open land outside Houston. One White Oak investor, William K. Russell, said he met Riley through the Big Canyon Country Club, near Riley’s current home just north of Newport Beach’s Fashion Island. Russell described Riley as a deal maker who used his insurance business to find investors for the land ventures.

Russell said Riley guaranteed nothing but anticipated the value of the Houston land to grow by a factor of 10 within three to four years. White Oak still exists as a partnership, but Russell said the profits never materialized and he’s informally written off his $30,000 to $40,000 investment as a loss. Another land deal, called Riley Land Partners, went bust when the partnership couldn’t make the payments, Russell said.

“It was just a lark, just a gamble to invest in some stuff and see what the return was,” said Russell, who owned Knight Equipment International Co. in Costa Mesa. “He was a fun guy, and he liked playing golf. He was a nice, friendly guy.”

DiSaia said he invested about $100,000 in White Oak after meeting Riley through a mutual friend. He also knew Ford separately, through medical circles.

“Larry was the nicest guy when I knew him,” he said. “They’re both kind of mild-mannered people. This has really blown me away.”

DiSaia said his impression was that Riley became involved with Ford and Biofem after the land deals didn’t pan out.

“Pat’s a businessman,” DiSaia said. “He can be tough, but most of the time he’s a very gregarious kind of guy. He’s a great guy to have a couple of drinks with.”

DiSaia recalled going to First Meridian Financial Corp.’s offices in Newport Beach to discuss his investment. Over the years, he said, the size of the office dwindled.

“It was a big outfit,” DiSaia said. “He had lots of people working for him. By 1990, it was just he and his wife.”

By then, Riley had already joined up with Ford.

Biofem Deal Is Sealed

Riley met Ford through a mutual business friend who knew Ford had a project and Riley was looking for new ventures. They met at UCLA and Riley initially balked at Ford’s plans, said Lee, Biofem’s lawyer.

Ford called Riley a few weeks later to renew the contact. The two men met again, and Riley decided to join with Ford.

It’s unclear whether Riley knew exactly what he was getting into.

Riley remains in hiding and through Lee has declined several requests for interviews.

But Lee says Riley knew nothing of Ford’s reported links to the CIA--which CIA officials have denied--or his role advising South African researchers in biochemical warfare.

“He was not aware of anything Ford was doing outside the scope of what Ford was doing with the company,” Lee said Friday.

Ford was introduced to South African weapons developers through Dr. Neil Knobel, former chief medical officer for the South African Defense Forces, who said he met Ford at a party hosted by the South African trade attache in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Knobel said he and Ford shared an interest in AIDS research. A year later, Knobel spoke at an international conference in Hawaii, where he again saw Ford and met Riley. Out of friendship, Knobel later arranged to have Nelson Mandela autograph copies of his autobiography, which he presented to Riley and Ford.

During the apartheid era, Knobel had administrative oversight of South Africa’s covert biochemical program, called “Project Coast,” directed by Dr. Wouter Basson.

Basson, nicknamed “Dr. Death” by South African media, currently is on trial on charges ranging from fraud to murder stemming from his role in apartheid--including directing a program that used commercial laboratories as fronts to develop biological and chemical weapons.

In an interview with The Times, Knobel said he introduced Ford to Basson. Basson later organized a 1987 seminar with Ford for some of his top researchers, said one of those present at the seminar. Ford was not well-received.

“Larry Ford in my mind is a fraud, same type of category as Basson is,” said a weapons researcher who asked not to be identified because he has been called as a witness in Basson’s trial. “They come with big talk and fancy stuff and gave us a lot of so-called dirty-tricks materials. When we analyzed it, it came to nothing of substance. He offered stuff to us. There was not any question of us giving stuff to him. The stuff he gave us was useless.”

Ford’s contacts with the South African biochemical programs extended beyond weapons.

Ford at one point used researchers at Delta G Scientific lab, which under Basson developed commercial drug products and covert sensory irritants for the military, to work on a formula to treat male baldness, said Dr. Johan Koekemoer, Delta G director.

Koekemoer said the project, dubbed “Ford Hair,” was conducted for Breaking Thru Inc., then based in Newport Beach. The firm now is registered at the same address as Biofem, and Riley is listed as company president.

“I was surprised that Basson came to us with a request like this since our major objective was completely different from this,” Koekemoer said. “Since he was my boss, I didn’t question that. As far as I’m concerned, it was quite interesting chemistry.”

A Murder Conspiracy

If Riley and Ford ever contemplated a publicity campaign for Biofem, it’s safe to assume their plans didn’t involve attempted murder. But that’s how the public first came to learn of the little company in the Irvine Spectrum.

When Riley showed up for work just before 10 a.m. on Monday Feb. 28, Ford was already at work inside the building, police said. As Riley emerged from his blue Audi, a masked gunman dressed in black walked up and fired a single shot into the side of his head, the bullet entering one cheek and fracturing his cheekbone before exiting above his lip.

The gunman fled in a waiting van, and Riley called Ford on his cell phone to ask for help. He walked, dripping blood, to a cafe, where a waitress summoned police and an ambulance, police and witnesses said.

Less than 12 hours later, police arrested Dino D’Saachs, 56, of Altadena, a Los Angeles businessman and longtime friend of Ford’s, on charges that he was the driver of the van. Police charged in court papers that D’Saachs was part of a conspiracy to kill Riley. D’Saachs has pleaded not guilty.

The motive behind the conspiracy, according to police, was money. But police have yet to say exactly how that conspiracy worked. And even though they have identified Ford as a possible suspect, they have not explained how they think he would have gained by the death of his partner.

The gunman remains at large, a key reason why Riley remains in hiding as he recovers from his wound. While police have their theories, they still haven’t wrapped up the investigation, which has riveted Orange County with its bizarre twists and lingering uncertainties.

A day after D’Saachs was arrested, police searched Ford’s home and discovered items they described as “germane” to the case. The next day, Ford met for nearly five hours with his lawyer, Stephen Klarich, and told the attorney that he feared police were going to tie him in with the botched hit.

Then he went home and shot himself.

In the days after Ford’s apparent suicide, police evacuated Irvine City Hall and Ford’s quiet Irvine neighborhood as they searched for suspected hazardous biological materials. Some were found in Ford’s house, and tests continue to determine exactly what was in the small jars. And a small arsenal, including illegal automatic rifles and military explosives, was excavated from the doctor’s side yard, within sight of Springbrook Elementary School.

Family members said they knew that Ford had buried weapons in the yard, but his son, Larry Jr., has said the family saw nothing unusual in that, and never discussed it.

“I know what a caring person he was,” the son said the day after his father was buried in Utah. “He would never do anything to harm or endanger his family, or endanger his neighbors.”

‘This . . . Was a Family Deal’

Ironically, from a business standpoint, the future still looks rosy, according to Lee, the Biofem attorney.

“It’s hard to say that in the face of a tragic event like this,” Lee said. “It seems cold. Larry is going to be missed. Things will unfold and people’s attitudes about Larry might change. Most people are still in disbelief and shock. You have to understand that this, for a long time, was a family deal in terms of how people felt about each other.”

A large portion of the start-up money for Biofem came from Riley’s proceeds from his earlier businesses, Lee said. Other outside investors, whom Biofem refused to identify, also were brought in.

DiSaia said Riley told him eight years ago that Ford “had something that was the perfect contraceptive and that it would prevent AIDS,” but that he wasn’t asked directly to invest.

“Whatever he told me sounded a little bit unrealistic, so I never pursued it,” DiSaia said. “I don’t know whether he wanted to use me to raise capital or what he wanted me to do.”

DiSaia said he heard nothing more.

“I guess they kept it a secret,” DiSaia said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘It must not have panned out,’ because I never heard another word about it.”

But plans were proceeding. Riley and Ford had hoped to drum up $6 million from investors in 1998 to launch clinical trials. That money didn’t materialize until recent months, though, when an unidentified East Coast venture fund came forward, Lee said.

Ford and Riley had reportedly disagreed about the clinical trials, but Lee dismissed the dispute as just part of the normal flow of business--similar to disagreements he’s had with Riley over legal aspects of the firm’s development.

“In a 12-year relationship, there are going to be some disagreements,” Lee said. “Pat is a very intense, tough guy. That’s why he’s the CEO. It takes the kind of tenacity Pat has to get where this thing is today.”

Lee said the trials are still being planned. Dr. Peggy Pence, who is in charge of the trials, said they probably will commence around the end of the year.

“We expect a two- to three-month delay” due to the shooting and Ford’s death, she said. “But everything is going ahead as planned.”

But the tenor has changed. The early sense of promise and optimism has been overwhelmed by grief and confusion. Riley remains in hiding, left to contemplate both his brush with mortality and police theories that Ford, the quiet business partner he thought he knew, might have tried to have him killed.

“The guy still wants to believe that Larry is not the guy,” Lee said. “He thought they had a relationship that was a strong one, and he did not know about this part of Larry’s life. Pat did care for Larry, and he’s still struggling. What it’s coming down to is that Pat is a pretty good judge of people. He’s shocked that he missed all of this.”