Man Pleads Not Guilty in Patients’ Deaths

Former respiratory therapist Efren Saldivar pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he killed six elderly hospital patients and attempted to kill a seventh by injecting them with a paralyzing drug at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

Saldivar, 32, wearing a white dress shirt and flanked by Deputy Public Defender Verah Bradford, sat calmly during the hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

He is accused of administering unauthorized doses of the drug Pavulon to the patients in 1996 and 1997. A grand jury indictment also alleges special circumstances of poisoning and mass murder that make Saldivar eligible for the death penalty, though prosecutors have not decided whether to seek it.

In a 1998 confession that he later recanted, Saldivar said he may have contributed to the deaths of as many as 200 patients.

After his arrest in January, he pleaded not guilty to six murder charges brought by the district attorney’s office. On Wednesday, those charges were dropped after his arraignment on the similar charges in the grand jury indictment, issued in October.

By obtaining an indictment, prosecutors avoided a preliminary hearing, which could have subjected their witnesses to cross-examination.

Attorneys on both sides are preparing for a lengthy trial. Bradford and her staff members have more than 100,000 pages of documents to review in coming months. She said she expects the trial to start in late 2002. Deputy Dist. Atty. Al MacKenzie said a trial could last at least three months.

Judge Lance Ito set a pretrial hearing for Jan. 22.

Saldivar, who lived in Tujunga, also pleaded not guilty Wednesday to receiving stolen property involving vials of the sleep-inducing drug Versed, found during a 1998 search of his home.