Body-Donor Chief at UCLA Misstated Credentials

The director of UCLA’s body-donor program, suspected of illegally selling hundreds of cadavers donated to the medical school, lied in a deposition in 2002 about his professional and academic background, according to a review by The Times.

Henry G. Reid, who was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of grand theft, also repeatedly filed for bankruptcy protection -- three times before he was hired by UCLA in 1997, and once afterward.

On Wednesday, UCLA’s lawyer said the university felt “duped” by Reid. The medical school had hailed him as amply qualified to restore credibility to the willed body program seven years ago, when it was facing another scandal over the improper disposal of remains.

As late as Feb. 10, in a court hearing before the scandal broke, an attorney for UCLA said that its willed body program under Reid was an “exemplar to all programs.”

In front of UCLA attorneys in November 2002, however, Reid painted an apparently distorted picture of his credentials while under oath. His statements came in a deposition in a lawsuit by dissatisfied families of donors who questioned whether the program was being properly run.

Reid touted his qualifications: He claimed that he had earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and music from what is now St. John’s Seminary and a master’s degree in music from Cal State Fullerton.

No Records of Degrees

Officials at both schools said Wednesday that records do not show Reid received a degree.

It appears that Reid claimed accolades that do not exist -- such as a summa cum laude distinction at a school that has none.

“I am extremely disappointed that Mr. Reid in a deposition ... appears to have testified falsely under oath,” said Louis Marlin, an outside lawyer whose firm represented UCLA at the deposition. “It is the position of our law firm that we never would have permitted such action had we known about it.”

Marlin said he did not learn of the discrepancies until they were brought to his attention by The Times on Wednesday. He then compared Reid’s resume from UCLA to the deposition testimony and found that the resume did not contain the deposition’s inaccuracies. He declined to release the resume because of restrictions governing employee confidentiality.

Marlin said UCLA would support the filing of a perjury charge if authorities determine Reid lied.

Reid has repeatedly refused to comment on the allegations against him.

Lawyers representing the families of donors said the information about Reid’s background further called into question UCLA’s oversight of its body-donor program, which was indefinitely suspended earlier this week.

“There is absolutely no excuse why UCLA was not aware of this before today,” said Raymond Boucher, who is suing UCLA on behalf of donors’ families. “This is more evidence that this program is and has been out of control for a decade and all the more reason why it has to be shut down permanently.

“You just can’t expect that these foxes are ever going to properly guard the henhouse,” Boucher said.

UCLA officials said that before last month, they never had any reason to suspect wrongdoing by Reid.

Medical school spokeswoman Dale Tate said Reid had undergone a Department of Justice background check before he was hired and “he was cleared with no criminal history.”

Public records show that his personal finances, however, were shaky before his hire.

According to court documents, Reid struggled for years to pay tens of thousands of dollars in delinquent income taxes dating back to the early 1980s.

Reid and his wife had filed for bankruptcy in 1981, 1992, 1994 and 1998, according to records on file at the federal archives in Laguna Niguel. By 1998, the records show, the couple owed the Internal Revenue Service more than $100,000.

Following the 1992 and 1994 filings, the records show, the Reids lost their court-ordered bankruptcy protection because they were unable to keep up with monthly payments to satisfy their debt.

Erased $50,000 of Debt

They did not have that problem with the 1998 case, which was filed seven months after Reid accepted a job with UCLA’s willed body program. In that case, the Reids made good on their plan to erase about $50,000 in debt -- apparently satisfying their obligation to the IRS -- over a period of three years, the court documents show.

The years in which they were paying off the debt overlapped with those in which Reid is suspected of selling human body parts for personal profit.

Attorney Jeffrey S. Shinbrot, who represented the Reids in their latest bankruptcy, downplayed any connection to the body-selling scandal.

He noted that the Reids’ repayment plan, which included an analysis of their respective incomes, was reviewed and approved by a court-appointed trustee.

“The implication that there’s a connection between the UCLA matter and the Reids’ [bankruptcy] is, at best, unsupported,” Shinbrot said.

Asked late Wednesday, UCLA spokeswoman Tate was unable to immediately determine if the university typically checked applicants’ finances or did so in Reid’s case.Although UCLA officials were unaware of it, Reid apparently showed signs of dishonesty well before the scandal broke -- in the 2002 deposition.

The deposition was taken as part of a 1996 lawsuit filed by relatives of cadaver donors. They contended that for decades, UCLA mishandled the remains of corpses it received -- mixing cremated ashes from the bodies with medical waste, and possibly animal remains, and dumping it in a city landfill.

Reid’s description of his background and credentials in that case was incorrect in many respects, according to several sources.

Carolina Guevara, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which runs St. John’s, said the school’s records show Reid attended the college from 1970 to 1972 but received no degree.

Cal State Fullerton spokeswoman Paula Selleck said the university has no record of Reid receiving a master’s degree. Selleck could not verify by press time whether Reid ever attended the university.

Deeds Embellished

While claiming to hold college and graduate degrees, Reid also made other apparently false claims about his academic accomplishments. He said, for instance, that he “graduated from Cypress College summa cum laude.”

Cypress College does not confer such a distinction, said Marc Posner, a spokesman for the community college. Reid apparently did finish in the top 10% of his mortuary science program in 1989, Posner said, because his name appears on a plaque identifying top finishers displayed at the school. The program did not award a degree at the time.

Reid also gave a questionable description of his state certification as an embalmer. Asked in the deposition whether he passed the state’s embalmer’s licensing exam, Reid said he did and that “I still hold the highest score in that.”

Kevin Flanagan, a spokesman for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the licenses, said the exam takers are not ranked.

“We don’t say someone is first in their class,” he said.

In fact, the test takers are told only whether they passed or failed the test, Flanagan said. Their individual scores are released to them only if they request the information, he said, and even then they are not given comparative information.

Another disclosure Wednesday suggested that UCLA had suspicions about aspects of Reid’s program before the scandal broke.

An official with NuVasive Inc., which makes spinal devices, said UCLA had requested information “some time ago” about possibly forged documents that had accompanied UCLA cadavers obtained through a broker.

“We provided any and all documentation that the university requested,” said Chief Financial Officer Kevin O’Boyle, who did not recall the specific date.

After that, O’Boyle said, NuVasive stopped purchasing cadavers from the broker, Ernest V. Nelson, who now stands accused with Reid of scheming to profit from the sale of bodies stolen from UCLA.

“We were notified by the university of what seemed to be transpiring and we discontinued use through Mr. Nelson at that time. We’re kind of the victims on the other end of the equation.”

Marlin, UCLA’s outside attorney, acknowledged that the campus last year investigated whether UCLA cadavers resold by Nelson had been accompanied by forged documents certifying they had been tested for various diseases, including HIV. But after medical school officials asked Nelson to return the cadavers and Nelson apparently complied, Marlin said, officials felt no need to take further action. By that time the campus had changed its policy to ban the transfer of cadavers to outside parties.

Nelson, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of receiving stolen goods, has acknowledged buying hundreds of cadavers from UCLA and reselling them to corporate clients. But he insisted that his work was sanctioned by the medical school and that he committed no crimes.

Times staff writers Scott Glover, Matt Lait, William Wan and Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.