L.A. County selects interim coroner as troubled agency seeks permanent chief
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday appointed a longtime deputy in the coroner’s office to the role of acting chief medical examiner-coroner.
Dr. Christopher Rogers becomes the second interim leader to helm the troubled agency as it grapples with a staffing shortage, case backlog and an anticipated lapse in its professional accreditation. His salary as acting director is $342,910.
The department’s previous coroner, Dr. Mark Fajardo, abruptly resigned in March, citing a lack of funding and resources to properly lead one of the nation’s busiest and most high-profile morgues.
At the time, about 180 bodies were stacked up at the morgue because of processing delays. The department handles more than 8,500 cases a year.
An outside consultant’s report completed in November found that the office was poised to lose its accreditation because of a backlog in the toxicology lab, staffing vacancies and a shortage of budgeted positions. The report recommended outsourcing DNA lab work, hiring two nurses and increasing the number of investigative positions.
Fajardo’s predecessor, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, stepped out of retirement in March to lead the agency until a permanent replacement could be found.
County spokesman Joel Sappell said a nationwide search for the new coroner is ongoing. It’s unclear whether Rogers is under consideration for the top job, and Sappell said the county does not comment on active job recruitment.
Rogers joined the coroner’s office in 1988 and performed the autopsy on Michael Jackson after the pop star died in 2009 from an overdose of a powerful anesthetic. Rogers ruled Jackson’s death a homicide and testified in the manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray that he would still consider the death a homicide even if it emerged that Jackson had administered the fatal dose himself.
Murray’s “substandard” treatment in using propofol, the anesthetic, to treat insomnia in a home setting without proper monitoring remained key to his opinion, Rogers testified in 2011.
Sathyavagiswaran will remain affiliated with the office as a consultant and fulfill the duties of the director of operations. That role is a new position created “to provide continuity and to help departmental operations at a time when vacancies are high and the search for a future administration is underway,” Sappell said.
Twitter: @MattHjourno
UPDATES:
12:55 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from the county.
This article was originally published at 4 a.m.
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