Man Accused of Stealing From UCLA Medical Staff

At a quick glance, he looked like a doctor. The well-dressed man carried a laser surgery textbook and comfortably maneuvered his way around UCLA Medical Center.

But authorities said he was actually an ex-con and drug addict on a very un-Hippocratic mission: to steal wallets and valuables from physicians and other hospital staff members to the tune of $50,000 in just one day and, they suspect, much more over the last few weeks.

Glen Dale Collins, 46, of Hollywood is scheduled to be arraigned today at the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse on at least eight counts of burglary, as well as charges of violating parole and resisting arrest. He is being held without bail in the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles.

Officers say they caught Collins on Wednesday, lugging a briefcase filled with wallets and stolen checks on busy Broxton Avenue in Westwood near the enormous hospital complex as a woman trailed behind screaming about a stolen wallet.

Witnesses said Collins had been affable and calm earlier in the day, even helping himself to coffee during visits to offices in the medical center. He reportedly told anyone who asked that he was a doctor on his way to a meeting. Dressed in a starched white shirt, tie and dress slacks, he noticed the name tags of hospital staff members and greeted them with familiarity, witnesses said. But Jan Austin Pederson, 39, the office manager at UCLA’s breast cancer treatment center, who is credited with a chase that led to the arrest, said she didn’t trust Collins from the start.

A patient reportedly spotted Collins leaving the office of nurse practitioner Sherry Goldman while Goldman was seeing patients, and alerted Pederson. When Goldman checked her purse, her wallet was missing.

That sent several office staff members into the hall looking for Collins, who was seen wandering around the office looking for an exit. Pederson confronted him about the missing wallet and Collins denied having taken it and even offered to call security himself.

“He said, ‘I don’t like you folks accusing me of taking anything,’ ” she recalled Wednesday.

When guards didn’t immediately arrive, however, Collins jumped on the elevator to the parking garage and Pederson followed. The South Bay woman said adrenalin and anger motivated her to tail Collins.

She dodged Westwood Boulevard traffic, followed him through a bridal store and across a parking lot before two campus paramedics alerted a nearby motorcycle officer to the chase.

“I didn’t have any fear--I was just angry that he came in our office and he stole from us . . . that he felt so comfortable and free to come in and take advantage of us,” Pederson said.

When officers reached him, Collins, who is described as 6 feet tall and weighing 250 pounds, was gasping for breath and they worried that he might be suffering a heart attack.

He was transported by ambulance back to the hospital. Doctors declared him healthy and released him to police custody.

Collins had been released from prison on a prior burglary conviction just three months ago and already was wanted by the Los Angeles Police Department in connection with another burglary when he was arrested, police said.

Pederson was praised by campus police for her vigilance. “It was good of her to follow him. There’s nothing wrong with trying to keep an eye on a person, as long as you’re not in any danger,” said UCLA Police Det. Tim Nyx.

Collins isn’t the first person to slip past UCLA Medical Center security.

Adam Litwin, 27, spent six months forging prescriptions and strolling through the hospital’s operating and emergency rooms before he was arrested in April and charged with impersonating a doctor, prosecutors say.

He was arrested after a medical center supervisor noticed he had lots of idle time, hid his identification badge and wore an unfamiliar lab coat. Litwin’s case is awaiting trial.

Police say the hospital complex, one of the largest in the world, houses about 90,000 people on any given business day in thousands of offices in several linked buildings along Westwood Boulevard. It’s an easy place to hide, Nyx said.

“Just about anyone who looks professional enough, who acts professional enough, would go unnoticed,” he said.