UC Board Seeks Millions From Fertility Doctors

Attempting to recoup millions of dollars spent on legal settlements, the UC Board of Regents voted Friday to sue the doctors who ran the scandal-ridden fertility clinic at UC Irvine.

The regents want Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone to reimburse them for more than $19 million that the university has agreed to pay infertile couples who sought help at the once acclaimed but now defunct Center for Reproductive Health.

The couples filed lawsuits after officials acknowledged that the UCI physicians lost or stole eggs and embryos in a medical ethics scandal that enveloped the medical center in 1995.

UC attorneys said such legal actions are rare but are warranted in this case. The decision came at a regular regents meeting in San Francisco.

“It is abundantly clear that the heinous actions these doctors took against their patients were completely outside the scope of their university position,” James Holst, UC general counsel, said in a prepared statement.

The regents also will seek to recover an additional $1.7 million they claim the doctors still owe for underreporting revenue to the university as part of their partnership agreement.

Some observers described the effort as more an attempt to deflect bad publicity than to collect money, which will be difficult because two of the doctors have fled the country.

Attorneys for the doctors were quick to deny the accusations in the complaint, which officials said will be filed in Orange County Superior Court.

Asch’s Newport Beach attorney, Josefina Walker, said Asch will look forward to having his day in court. She said a trial would allow Asch to expose how the university paid too much to settle the lawsuits in a hasty attempt to “sweep the entire thing under the carpet.”

“The people of California will get to decide whether their money was well spent on paying off all these people,” she said.

Stone’s attorney, Karen Taillon, said the regents’ decision is inconceivable in light of the fact that Stone had been acquitted of federal tax-evasion and conspiracy charges. Stone was convicted in 1997 of fraudulently billing insurance companies.

“They are buying a major lawsuit,” she said. “My client has been completely exonerated on those allegations, and it is clearly an intentional act designed to further damage and injure his reputation.”

Balmaceda’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

The action comes as the university is trying to settle the last seven of the 113 lawsuits filed by former patients. They stemmed from the activities carried out, principally by Asch and Balmaceda, at fertility clinics in Orange and San Diego counties from 1986 to 1995.

The doctors were accused of harvesting women’s eggs and then giving them to other women. In some cases, eggs or embryos were given secretly to other patients or used for research. Some couples bore children conceived from the eggs of other women without the knowledge of the genetic parents.

Asch and Balmaceda fled the country in 1995--Asch to Mexico, Balmaceda to Chile. Federal prosecutors are trying to extradite both to stand trial on numerous charges, including mail fraud and tax evasion counts.

While university officials claim the lawsuit is an attempt to hold the doctors financially accountable for their actions, others are skeptical. Walter Koontz, an attorney representing some of the couples that have yet to settle their claims, said the regents’ action is merely a well-timed publicity ploy.

Koontz said the regents are attempting to distance themselves from their former employees ahead of a January trial, when jurors may decide who is chiefly to blame for the scandal. The regents, Balmaceda and Asch all are defendants in the lawsuit.

The regents, Koontz added, also are seeking to strip Asch and Balmaceda--who, like Stone, are officially on leave from the university--of their tenure.

“They’re trying to put another nail in his coffin,” Koontz said, referring to Asch. “They’re looking to strip him of his credentials.”

The fact that Balmaceda and Asch have refused to return to this country to face criminal charges leads some to speculate that the UC system may never recoup any funds.

“It’s going to be pretty tough. A judge could rule in their favor, but to actually get the money is the hard part,” said Alison Dundes Renteln, a USC law professor.