The Times similarly could not determine whether the medical board had collected all the emails, text messages and other material cited in the agreement. The babys mother, a winsome, blond 26-year-old named Dora Yoder, seemed really distraught, Davis recalled. At the time, Puliafito had a sterling reputation in ophthalmology and lived in a $5-million mansion with his wife of 38 years. Mike Davis and Gene Morse into a murky world of desperate young addicts and small-time drug dealers with a disgraced multimillionaire at the center: Dr. Carmen Puliafito, former dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine. There are a lot of unanswered questions about this death., Dr. James Ribe, a specialist in pediatric autopsies. The Detroit Lions quarterback and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model are set to tie the knot after being together since 2019. The largest, most important media company west of the Potomac and one of Los Angeles oldest institutions had an opportunity to do the right thing and lost its way, Pringle said in an interview. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito boosted the medical school's ranking as its dean and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, becoming one of the highest-profile figures at a university packed with star . My daughters been known to do drugs, and shes involved with a doctor thats also been known to do drugs, Menno Yoder told a deputy on Aug. 30, 2016, according to a recording of the call. Eventually, Warren and her family agreed to talk, and so did others with whom Warren and Puliafito had illicitly partied. The methamphetamine level 50 nanograms per milliliter was not super high, said UC San Francisco-Fresno medical toxicologist Dr. Patil Armenian, a drug researcher and emergency room doctor who reviewed the coroners report for The Times. In Bad City, Times investigative reporter Paul Pringle who led the papers efforts to scrutinize Puliafito and USC dissects how the university and several of The Times top editors, now no longer at the paper, allegedly fell from grace together. The physician also had multiple conversations with Kyle Voigt, a convicted dealer who had partied with both parents and was on his way to prison, the transcript indicates. In the end, the coroners office stuck with its findings. PULIAFITO - Dominic F. January 10, 2010, age 87, of Williamsville, New York, beloved son of the late Carmelo and Salvatora (Trifilo) Puliafito; beloved husband of 61 years of Marie (Nigro); loving fat Puliafito denied an ongoing relationship with Voigt and said he had never heard of the women. . Determining the cause and manner of death is a matter of professional judgment, he said. USC has seen numerous scandals involving medical staff and faculty in recent years. Warren and Yoders boyfriend are also in the photos. Several of those photos show Puliafito with Yoder, including in a Las Vegas hotel room with a meth pipe and butane torch in the foreground. Youd have to prove that a reasonable person would have been legitimately convinced that the medical board had everything., If that wasnt the case and USC hadnt retained a copy, the universitys intentions could come under scrutiny, Weisberg and other experts said. The sources said celebrity attorney Mark Geragos and his firm negotiated the deal for the Warren family. The deal, which forbids the Warrens from ever publicly discussing it or their dealings with Puliafito and USC, was struck as the #MeToo movement took hold across the country and highlighted criticism of financial settlements that silenced victims of sexual abuse and harassment. [5] Before that, he had been director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, and chair of the department of ophthalmology. Carmen A. Puliafito is an opthamologist and is the former Dean of the University of Southern California Medical School. She called me crying, he replied. In the morning both suspects discovered that the victim had died. Atty. Pasadena, California (CA), US. He acknowledged going to the apartment the night before to see the baby but said he observed no drug use. He insisted he was at home with his wife in Pasadena when Yoder called him in a panic. In "Bad City," Times investigative reporter Paul Pringle who led the paper's efforts to scrutinize Puliafito and USC dissects how the university and several of The Times' top editors, now no longer at the paper, allegedly fell from grace together. The report does not address why Yoder called him before summoning an ambulance, and she did not respond to messages seeking comment. Its a case that demonstrates the challenges of child-death investigations and the particular complications of a wealthy and connected suspect in this case, a world-renowned physician with a legal team and private investigator at his disposal. Former Los Angeles County Dist. It also reflects the challenges of the modern media landscape and the intense discussions surrounding the medias traditional role of holding the powerful accountable. The Times story on the management changes said the two men were fired in a dramatic shake-up. The company also terminated a deputy managing editor; an assistant managing editor; reporter Jill Leovy, who is Duvoisins wife; and Maharajs executive assistant. In this 2003 photograph, Dr. Carmen Puliafito is shown second from the right. At its heart, it is the story of a whistleblower and a newsroom trying to do the right thing against great odds. The newspaper is in better hands, Pringle said. Yoder gave birth last year to a second child, a girl, with Franko, according to birth . Getting the story into print, Bad City argues, was at least as arduous as the investigation itself. Aug 31, 2017 at 8:45 pm. The case of the death of newborn Boaz Yoder plunged detectives into the murky world of USCs ex-medical school dean, Carmen Puliafito. She and Lucas met. By jdubble07 @ 2017-07-17 15:55:08. Duvoisin is now editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Express-News. According to the book, he nodded toward Maharajs and Duvoisins offices and asked, What makes you think theyll run it?. Two months after the infants death, a toxicology screen detected methamphetamine. Family members received prewritten affidavits to sign containing explicit denials that Puliafito used drugs as well as denials that Yoder harmed the baby. He claimed in his testimony that he was no longer in close touch with Yoder and had cut off contact with other members of his drug-using circle. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, An overdose, a young companion, drug-fueled parties: The secret life of a USC med school dean, An infant dies, a millionaire doctor calls 911, and a tale emerges of drugs, love and suspected crime, After a baby suddenly dies, a 911 call from USCs former medical school dean sparks detectives interest, Want to solve climate change? The apartment was neat and clean and filled with good baby equipment, Davis recalled in an interview. The apartment lease was in his name, and her family and friends suspected he paid for almost everything: furniture, groceries, baby supplies and, disturbingly, drugs. Every time you would interview one person, they would mention another person in this little world.. It also was when two high-level editors then at The Times were accused of trying to stop the papers own reporting team from covering the USC scandal. [14][15][16][17], The Los Angeles Times reported in July 2017 that while Puliafito served as dean and USC professor, he "kept company with a circle of criminals and drug users who said he used methamphetamine and other drugs with them. The now-former dean of the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine routinely partied hard with a band of drug users which included a 21-year-old prostitute and a troubled karaoke deejay with a lengthy rap sheet. Warren had told the newspaper that she met Puliafito in early 2015 and that they were constant companions for more than a year and a half. The Chronicle of Higher Education, which first reported the University payments, stated that USC paid Puliafito $850,000 in severance along with $624,000 in base . Duvoisin, according to Bad City, told the team it could not report that Puliafito regularly used drugs. Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito is a Ophthalmologist in Miami, FL. Three medical experts The Times consulted said they disagreed with aspects of her report, starting with the manner of death. Experts in civil and criminal law said it can be risky to destroy original videos, photos and other material amid an ongoing inquiry, depending on the intent of those signing the agreement. . Our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct requires me to make this report.. (Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Read Less Local News Puliafito had resigned his position as medical school dean, although he remained at the university. Jackie Lacey, who was in office at the time, said in a recent interview that she was unaware of the settlement agreement and the wiping of the images and other material. For nearly 30 years, the University of Southern Californias student health clinic had one full-time gynecologist: Dr. Dr. This time around, Pringle figured out who she was. If he didnt, it wouldnt. Harriet Ryan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He did not even know her last name. [4] The institute has regularly been ranked as the best eye hospital and vision research center in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. He said that the mother was his girlfriend but that he was in Pasadena. The article says Buffalo native Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, who was the Dean of the Keck School of Medicine, used methamphetamine and other drugs with criminals during . But to do so, a clandestine team of reporters had to hide their early efforts to cover the university from the papers top management, according to Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels, out this month. Report: Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito used methamphetamine and consorted with a prostitute who overdosed during one of their trysts. One bill to which he contributed outlawed secrecy pacts in sexual abuse cases. (Alex J. Berliner) On a November day in 2017, USC entered into a secret mediation agreement with the family of a young woman whose drug-fueled relationship with the former dean of the university's medical school had engulfed the institution in scandal. They said that although they did not see evidence of foul play in reviewing the babys autopsy, they also did not see conclusive evidence of an accident and disagreed with the decision to classify the death that way. Still, she noted, no meth should be present in an infant.. She asked for a meeting with the head coroner, Dr. Jonathan Lucas. The Times eventually published a lengthy piece on USCs major ethical lapses. They called the Sheriffs Department, reiterated their concerns about Puliafito and encouraged investigators to look closer at Boazs death. Her relatives were shocked by the childs death and then suspicious. Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg said it would be somewhat tricky territory to destroy images like those on the Warrens devices if the parties to an agreement werent certain that an investigative agency such as the medical board already had all of the material. This represents the continuing and increasing dominance of medical . The closer investigators from the L.A. County Sheriffs Departments Homicide Bureau looked, however, the more doubts they had. They turned up evidence in County Jail, a toxicology lab and the confidential files of USCs white-shoe attorneys. He had some French ancestry on his mother's side. CARMEN PULIAFITO LOSES HIS LICENSE. On Aug. 21, 2017, Justin Dearborn chief executive of the Times parent company, which at that point was called Tronc announced that Maharaj and Duvoisin had left the paper, along with several others. You dont base a diagnosis of asphyxia solely on the report of the mother when she was high at the time she placed the baby to sleep, Bertone said. Editors are supposed to make certain that reporters knock on those doors if all other attempts to reach the subject failed., Duvoisin said he thought Pringles efforts to contact Nikias were a bit over the top and verging on harassment. But, he said, I did not try to prevent him., Pringle countered that characterization: It could not be more routine to knock on the door of the subject of a story when that person does not respond to phone calls, emails and other attempts to engage him., He said he would expect to be disciplined by an editor if I failed to do that on a story of such importance., When Pringle went to Nikias house, the university president wasnt there. [6] While dean, he served on the board of the Children's Hospital Los Angeles. One of Yoders sisters later met with detectives. A report, left, filled out by an investigator at the scene of Boaz Yoders death on Oct. 5, 2017, shows shading on a diagram of the infants body, which represents discolorations on the babys chest and face from, (Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner). Your IP: Carmen Puliafito resigned in March 2016 as dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Yoder gave birth last year to a second child, a girl, with Franko, according to birth records. Absolutely, Puliafito says. The temperature outside had dipped to 55 degrees; she said the heater inside the apartment wasnt working, and it felt like the air conditioner was on instead, according to the investigators report. A graduate of Boston College and the University of Southern California, he joined The Times in 2013. In early 2017, she turned to him after discovering she was pregnant, and he paid for her detox program, according to medical board filings. When Pringle wrote the first version of the Puliafito story, he had not been able to find the young woman who had overdosed at Hotel Constance. Then, in mid-October, she told them Boaz had died of SIDS. And they agreed, according to Bad City, that we would do this quietly that is, without telling Maharaj and Duvoisin.. The death of a newborn named Boaz Yoder in an Altadena apartment seemed at first glance like a case of sudden infant death syndrome. Khan filled him in about the overdose and the unconscious woman and the famous man and the official inaction. Sarah Warren, the woman who overdosed in the Pasadena hotel room. Though Puliafito had never been charged with a crime, the addicts and dealers he partied with were arrested with some frequency, court records show. He was just found like this by his parents? the emergency dispatcher asked. They later learned that a private investigator and another person working on the doctors behalf had contacted members of the Yoder family, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Times. None of that mattered. Who does that? Manly said. These events happened years before President Folt arrived at USC; it would be inappropriate for her to comment, a spokeswoman for Folt said in an email. 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