Figure in UCLA cadaver case agrees to plea deal

One of the alleged participants in a cadaver-trafficking scheme at UCLA’s medical school has agreed to plead guilty to filing a false federal tax return and admitted to concealing $54,400 in income.

The plea agreement announced by authorities Tuesday resolves the federal tax case against Henry Reid, an embalmer from Anaheim who directed UCLA’s “willed-body” program from 1997 to 2004.

But Reid still faces state criminal charges of conspiracy and grand theft. In that case, he is accused of funneling bodies donated for research to a middleman, who then sold body parts to others for profit.

Officials in the U.S. attorney’s office and the Los Angeles district attorney’s office declined to say whether Reid’s federal plea agreement would influence, or foreshadow a guilty plea in, the pending criminal case.

Sandra Brown, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the tax case, said Reid “has been cooperating with the federal government for quite some time now, and he’s agreed to cooperate with regard to continuing matters we may be looking into.” She declined to specify what those additional matters might be.

Brown added that “there has never been a joint investigation or something like that” between federal and local authorities in the cadaver-trafficking case.

UCLA officials declined to comment, and Reid’s lawyer, Melvyn Sacks, could not be reached.

In the federal tax case, which was not made public until Tuesday, Reid was charged with filing a false tax return in 2002. In the plea agreement, however, he admitted that he failed to report $54,400 in income over a four-year period, from 2000 to 2003. Reid agreed to pay the federal government $24,273 in restitution.

Under the plea agreement, Reid could still be fined up to $250,000 and sentenced to up to three years in federal prison. The written plea agreement, however, indicates that the U.S. attorney’s office might be satisfied with a maximum term of six months in home detention.

Reid and the alleged middleman in the cadaver-trafficking scheme, Ernest Nelson of Rancho Cucamonga, await a Sept. 14 hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the criminal case. Nelson faces three tax evasion charges in addition to conspiracy and grand theft charges.

The willed-body controversy became public in March 2004, when UCLA placed Reid and an associate on leave for their alleged role in stealing body parts. Days later, UCLA suspended its program and did not reopen it for more than 1 1/2 years.

Reid’s associate, Keith Lewis, was never charged and died in July 2004 of an accidental drug overdose.

Four months ago, after a three-year investigation, the district attorney’s office announced its criminal charges against Reid and Nelson.

Nelson has acknowledged cutting up hundreds of cadavers and selling them to large medical research companies, including Johnson & Johnson.

He said the school authorized the sales, but UCLA officials have said Nelson was acting on his own.

stuart.silverstein@latimes.com