The Continued Crimes at UCLA

The following is a letter I wrote earlier this year to Janet Napolitano, the UC Board of Regents, Gene Block (UCLA Chancellor,) Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.  As has been the case throughout this now 17-year ordeal, no one has even bothered to reply, let alone address the damning evidence against UCLA that I have presented.

 

As my private appeals continue to be ignored, I am posting this so that the public at large can see how the corrupt UC system has treated my family.  Now that Ruta is facing yet another surgery, it is more imperative than ever that we get justice and financial compensation from UCLA:

Since August 18, 2001, the University of California has misused its might to crush any investigation of the violent attack which nearly ended my sister's life. She survived the massive bleeding and lying unconscious for an hour in UCLA's parking lot 8, but has never recovered from the brutal cover-up inflicted on her by the University.

Now she urgently needs another surgery to repair a complication arising from the literally life-saving 14-hour surgery she had ten years ago; that is, a metal clamp which held the jaw together is protruding through her skin.

Few head and neck surgeons understand the corrective procedure and are capable of performing it. The operation has to be done at UCLA by the doctor who did the original surgery, and who is the acknowledged expert in the field.

A return to UCLA--the scene of the crime--has reawakened overwhelming anxiety and rage in our whole family, but in Ruta it has also caused heart arrhythmias which resulted in a terrifying postponement of the surgery.

UCLA is, after all, the place where campus police ignored reports of a violent assault in parking lot 8. It is the place where Ruta's medical records were falsified to make three major head wounds "a laceration" and an hour of face down, bloody unconsciousness "an unconscious episode." It was the place where police wrote a maliciously deceitful letter to malign Ruta as a malingerer--her medical records, after all, show only "a laceration"--and me as a "conspiracy nut." The letter claims detectives (unnamed) "conducted a follow-up interview." This was an obvious, demonstrable lie and administrators knew it. They knew this "follow-up interview" with Det. Duenas occurred on September 20, more than a month after the attack, and only after numerous written complaints to officials, including one I hand-delivered to then-Chancellor Carnesale's office concerning UCLA's failures to protect Ruta.

The police letter was false from beginning to end, but University administrators knowingly used it to obstruct all of our efforts to pursue justice.

The letter concluded that police "are unable to determine" if Ruta" was the victim of assault or a simple accidental fall victim. We are considering the incident closed."

It was "closed" from the beginning. But some variation of those ridiculously inane lines was used repeatedly to dismiss our complaints about the abusive treatment Ruta received.

Director of Administrative Policies and Compliance, William H. Cormier, often answered for other officials, including the Regents, with, "I regret that you are dissatisfied with the responses you have received from the University concerning its investigation into the cause of the injuries for which you were treated at the UCLA Medical Center in 2001. You maintain you were the victim of a criminal attack in Parking Structure 8. However, the UCLA Police Department was unable to conclude that a criminal attack occurred."

Of course they couldn't "conclude that a criminal attack occurred," because they refused to investigate. However, the doctor who treated Ruta for three days in the hospital concluded that an assault had put her there. Her outside doctor concluded that only an assault could have caused her injuries and faxed UCLA, "Mugged in parking lot..." And, in fact, Det. Tony Duenas concluded that an assault had occurred, but the police letter's account of his conclusions covered up that fact.

When Ruta summoned the strength to write a long complaint detailing the many abuses the University had perpetrated, including avoiding accountability and the payment of compensation by firing its Workers' Comp provider after the Third Party Administrator spent months trying--unsuccessfully--to gain access to campus police records, outgoing University President Mark Yudof joined in on the cover-up. He thanked Ruta for the letter "regarding the University's investigation into the cause of the injuries for which you were treated." Then, "William H. Cormier has responded to you on this matter." Finally, "I hope you understand, the Regents and I have nothing further to add to what he has already said."

Which was nothing.

A year after the attack, the duplicitous police letter came to us via Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl's office. It was sent--quite contemptuously--to prove that UCLA had done everything right. We sent copies of the letter back to Sheila Kuehl, and to every official we had previously contacted, with the true account of our meeting with Det. Duenas. But nobody listened.

The falsified medical records did not come to light until Ruta was in the ICU after the 14-hour surgery. A nurse overheard me talking to a visitor about the attack and was shocked that the medical records suggested only a mild fainting spell. I e-mailed administrators to invite them to the ICU to see what they had done to my sister. Nobody listened.

Somebody must have the decency to listen now. My sister has suffered enough. And UCLA must take responsibility for what it has done.

Enclosed below is the letter my sister wrote which elicited the callous response from Mark Yudof. Janet Napolitano had William Cormier "respond" for her.

August 16, 2013

Gene Block
UCLA Chancellor’s Office:
Box 951405, 2147 Murphy Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1405

Dear Chancellor Block:

On Saturday morning, August 18, 2001, I entered parking lot 8 after working a double shift as a psychiatric nurse at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. It was a job I had held for thirty years.
I was eager to return home because my family and I had planned what was to be an enjoyable outing. My health was excellent, I was in good spirits, and I had handled the double shift without a problem.:

The next thing I was aware of was regaining consciousness with my face in a large pool of blood which extended well beyond my head. Looking at my watch I realized an hour had passed. I found my car and drove home to West Hills, dazed and covered with blood.

In the past my sister and I have written to University administrators and Regents demanding answers to our questions: Why did campus police refuse to investigate the report of a violent crime in parking lot 8? After years of complaints from nurses on my unit at NPI that parking lot 8 was unsafe, why did the University do nothing about security? Why was I allowed to lie unconscious and bleeding for an hour in parking lot 8 when the campus police station was only a few yards away, and the parking officials’ offices were just a few feet away? Why did the emergency room personnel who admitted me decide immediately that I had “just fallen,” even though my sister insisted to them that “a madman is running loose in parking lot 8?” They even commented that parking lot 8 “is always deserted on Saturday mornings.”

Why did the University violate the Clery Act by failing to report that a female employee was beaten, raped, and left for dead in the Jules Stein parking lot about a week earlier? I heard about it only when her husband called me to say the University was claiming that he had done it.

About a year later, my family obtained a letter from State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s office, written by Manny Garza, Operations Lieutenant with the campus police. It was a total fabrication and an offense to logic. It admits that on August 18, 2001, “UCLA Police Officers responded to the Emergency Room after being called to investigate an on-campus injury.” That begs the question: Why didn’t they respond an hour earlier when Ginny, the nurse from my unit, reported a violent crime in parking lot 8? Why didn’t the women who admitted me to the Emergency Room report a violent crime in parking lot 8 when that is what was reported to them by me and my sister?

The infamous letter goes on to say that the officers “interviewed” me but I was unable to say how I sustained the injury. I was “only able to provide a general time and location.” Is Manny Garza saying I was lucid enough to be interviewed, but couldn’t say where I had parked, or what time I left work? It also says I told the officers nothing was missing from my “purse,” and that’s why, “based on the limited amount of information…and no indication that a crime occurred,” the officers decided to document it as an “injury investigation.” That was a lie. I didn’t have a purse. It was a backpack. There was nothing of value in it so my sister hadn’t even checked if something was missing.

She was sitting outside my room when the officers arrived, and stayed, according to her, less than a minute. I was only semi-conscious by then, but I don’t believe they ever looked at my head wounds. If they had, they would have seen what my sister and niece saw instantly when I drove myself home after the assault: It would be physically impossible to sustain multiple injuries around the top of the head from a fall. Also, I had two plastic herb-tea containers in my backpack which would have cushioned my “fall” and protected any part of my head from ever hitting the ground.

As the officers abruptly left, they asked my sister nothing. Nothing! She challenged one of the admitting room women when she heard her tell someone I “just fell.” She said my wounds were not consistent with a fall. The woman responded, they were “entirely consistent.” She hadn’t even seen them! When my sister asked the emergency room doctor about me, he said I had fallen because I was dehydrated. She called that ridiculous because I drank so much herb tea. His response was, “The more you drink, the more you go.”

The horror and absurdity of what was happening made my sister feel that not only were UCLA officials covering up the crime—in violation of the Clery Act—but that they were somehow responsible for it. She had reasons to be suspicious. I was involved in two lawsuits the University had lost. An exceptionally good nurse on my unit had been harassed and then fired on falsified grounds. I was one of few witnesses signed up to testify in her behalf. Others admitted to being afraid of UCLA’s reprisals. The doctor, who was supposedly claiming an offense against Natalia, testified first, saying she had done everything right and was one of the best nurses he had ever seen. After a three year ordeal, Natalia received a large settlement from UCLA and a severe reprimand of the University from the judge.

The other lawsuit was the Sujon Guha suicide. Sujon’s father, Arun, believed UCLA had murdered him. He said so to the media, and on his website, where he accused me of lying to cover up UCLA’s crime. For nearly eight years my family and I were traumatized both by Mr. Guha’s efforts to “break me” and force me to implicate UCLA in murder, and the University’s failure to mount a competent defense. I wrote many letters asking University officials to have me withdrawn from the lawsuit and to counter-sue Mr. Guha for slander and libel; they refused. Although UCLA was guilty of failing to install breakaway bars to prevent patients from hanging themselves, which nurses had long requested, Mr. Guha was charging murder. He couldn’t accept the fact that his son killed himself after sending his father out to get him a dinner. His own father detected no suicidal tendencies; I wasn’t working that day, and should not have been dragged through the courts for years, charged with murder.

Manny Garza’s deceptive letter says my sister “even offered two theories, one of which involved a conspiracy by Mr. Guha.” Again, Manny Garza lied. My sister offered more than two theories. She didn’t mention “a conspiracy,” although a conspiracy by the University was preying on her mind. And the fear that Mr. Guha, a wealthy, powerful, and misguidedly obsessed man, was out to get me is still a reality for my family. Since police never pursued an assailant or investigated the possibility, how can I ever feel sure? Another possibility my sister offered was that a patient did it. When she took me to pick up my MRI’s, a patient accosted us outside the Medical Center and behaved inappropriately. My sister made a point of mentioning this to Detective Duenas. Many patients, even on the intensive care psychiatric unit where I worked, are allowed to spend time outside. But Manny Garza ignored this possible theory. Manny Garza never named Det. Tony L. Duenas in the letter the University has used as its only “defense” ever since. That might be because the letter was never meant for his eyes. Or ours. It was written to Gerald S. Levey as an obvious attempt to excuse police malfeasance.

 Under oath, both Manny Garza and Det. Duenas would have to testify that the letter is a lie. It says, “Detectives from this department conducted a follow-up interview with Ms. Lideks.” There was no first interview; therefore, no “follow-up.” Campus police can’t say they “interviewed” me and yet admit they got no real information. The information was there to be obtained. But there was no investigation to obtain it. They can’t have it both ways. The interview with Det. Duenas and another detective occurred more than a month after the attack on me. On the month anniversary of the attack I was seeking help from UCLA social worker, Nan Levine. It was she who discovered that the police had done no investigation and filed away the case under “injury.” After that, my sister became even more furious and suspicious of UCLA. My health had begun a downward spiral because of the pain, dizziness, nightmares, and the stress of fearing an assailant who was out there and still wanted me dead. I was spending most of my time in bed. And yet, UCLA harassed my doctor, Dr. Hartenbrauer, to get me back to work. They tried to get him to write that I had suffered only a “laceration.”

 He told them I was lucky to be alive, and, “Mugged in UCLA parking area...unconscious—hospitalized—dizzy…Neck injury.”

My sister began a campaign to demand answers from UCLA as to why no investigation had ever been done, and why there was a cover-up of what happened to me. Finally, Det. Duenas called us and arranged a meeting. This was not, as he would have to tell you under oath, “a follow-up interview.” It was well over a month after the attack. Det. Duenas apologized for the way the case had been handled, and said that, so long after the crime, it was unlikely they could find the assailant. But, he promised to post the attack on the police website, as required by law. He never did this. He also said that UCLA was too big to be adequately protected. Certainly an admission against interest that the University worked very hard to later suppress.

My sister made a point of telling Det. Duenas that Dr. Meserve, (she even spelled her name and he wrote it in his yellow pad,) had concluded that I had been attacked. Dr. Meserve had even urged my sister to go back to the campus police to spur them to find the assailant because she used parking lot 8 and now feared for her own safety. My sister went there and was told (falsely) that police were still investigating. Det. Duenas asked my sister if she would recognize the women who misinformed her. She told Det. Duenas that one of them was working there at that time. All of this was taken down in Det. Duenas’ yellow pad, and none of it was accurately reflected in Manny Garza’s mendacious letter.

Notwithstanding its mendaciousness, the letter has been used repeatedly throughout my years of suffering, to obstruct justice, to stonewall me and my sister, and to lie to elected officials such as State Senator Sheila Kuehl, from whom we obtained the letter, and Congressman Henry Waxman. Henry Waxman was also deceived when the University General Counsel, Joe Mandel, told him they could not comment on the case because of “a pending lawsuit,” even though a judge had long before—and wrongly—dismissed the case. (UCLA’s attorney had claimed financial hardship.)

Henry Waxman also “contacted Nancy Greenstein, the Director of Community Service for the UCLA Police (UCPD,) and was assured that the UCPD investigated the incident and took a report. The UCLA authorities feel they have done everything possible to respond to your concerns.” This was a lie based on the Manny Garza letter which would be repeated by Nancy Greenstein, William H. Cormier, Kim Kovacs Savage, and others who responded disingenuously in behalf of University administrators.

In behalf of Chancellor Abrams, Nancy Greenstein wrote to my sister, “As was indicated in correspondence to you from that time period…” There was no correspondence from “that time period.” Ms. Greenstein apparently did not realize that the Manny Garza letter was not meant to be seen by us. It was written to Gerald Levey. The University sent it to Senator Kuehl’s office to deter an inquiry by misrepresenting the facts to Senator Kuehl. “…it could not be determined whether your sister was the victim of an assault or a simple accidental fall. A great deal of effort went into the original follow-up investigation and it is unfortunate that the results could not be more conclusive.”

It is unfortunate that the nearly verbatim repetition of Manny Garza’s irrelevant misrepresentations has allowed UCLA to avoid responsibility for its negligent security and abusive treatment of crime victims on campus.

After my sister and I met with Det. Duenas at the end of September, a putative investigation was begun by Human Resources administrator Cynthia Cohen. After months of “investigating” Ms. Cohen told me she’d be finished when she reviewed the tape of the Det. Duenas interview. I never heard from Ms. Cohen again. She didn’t take, or return, my calls. In early January 2002 I received a letter from Milan Botica of Octagon Risk Services, Inc., the claims administrator for the University.

The letter states that a claim came to them “through the University of California, Office of the President, and through the Office of Risk Management." The letter states, “The information provided indicates that the incident started with an assault in the UCLA parking structure #8.”

Milan Botica also investigated for many months but wasn’t able to complete the investigation until he got access to the campus police records. Then, in early August—days away from the one-year anniversary of the assault—my sister called Octagon and got a recorded message that Sedgwick, the Third-Party Administrator for the Regents of the University of California, was now in charge. She made frantic calls—by this time my weight had plummeted, I was tense, fatigued, unable to sleep, my face and body swelled, and I was literally unable to speak for myself.

On August 9, 2002, my sister reached Sedgwick Claims Examiner Cheryl Fontana, who said she hadn’t even looked at my file. Seeing that the statute of limitations would end my ability to seek compensation, she said she’d deny the claim—without investigation—while there was time (barely over a week) for legal recourse. Cheryl Fontana wrote a letter dated that day in which she denied my claim. Again, without any investigation. Under oath, Cynthia Cohen and Milan Botica would undoubtedly have to say that campus police obstructed and prevented their investigations. Cheryl Fontana would have to say that time constraints caused by University obstructionism, prevented an investigation.

The University has always been aware that no investigation has ever taken place. I have never asked the University to determine if I was “the victim of an assault or a simple accidental fall.” That’s not now and never was the issue. It’s beyond question that I was the victim of an assault. The issues are, the University’s negligence, it’s lack of security which allowed the attack, and then allowed me to lie unattended for an hour; and, perhaps even more terrifyingly, the subsequent conspiracy by the University to cover up the crime. My sister, who had been taking care of me as well as trying to get justice for me, began losing sleep, feeling extreme stress, and suffering severe heart arrhythmias.

Somehow, we managed to file a lawsuit. We couldn’t find an attorney in a week, so we had to do it ourselves. The complaint we overlooked at the time, which became more relevant as the years went on, was the intentional infliction of emotional distress. It was at this point Senator Sheila Kuehl’s office sent us a copy of the Manny Garza letter. We filed a motion for a delay, based on this new evidence and on our need for time to find an attorney. UCLA’s attorney, who told us he had no objection to a delay, showed up in court and unashamedly told the judge that a delay would be “a financial hardship” for the University. The judge denied the delay and dismissed the case. This, after thirty years as a psychiatric nurse at UCLA’s NPI, after losing my ability to work, after being forced to quit because of UCLA’s harassment—this was how the University treated me: It denied me my day in court by pleading “financial hardship.” Then the University lied about “a pending lawsuit” which had already been dismissed.

My sister continued to fight for justice as my health and my life deteriorated. My financial hardship” forced me to take equity out of my house, which fell into disrepair, and to stop seeing doctors I couldn’t afford and who couldn’t explain my weight loss or my swelling. Finally, in 2008, my sister took me to the West Hills Emergency Room. Doctors said I would die without surgery. My face and entire body had swollen to grotesque proportions. Doctors drained some of the swelling around my lungs, but couldn’t figure out what to do with me. They transferred me to UCLA. The doctor who gave me pulmonary clearance prior to surgery realized that my cell walls weren’t holding and were leaking cellular fluid in my body. He put me on a high protein, high fat diet, which, after the surgery, is what saved my life.

I was in the ICU for eight days, during which time two significant facts came to light. One was that my medical records after the assault did not reflect Dr. Hartenbrauer or Dr. Meserve’s conclusions. My records acknowledged I had been unconscious for an hour, but said I suffered only “a laceration” due to this “unconscious episode.” The nurses in ICU were shocked, and they should have been. They, and everyone else who treated me then was given a false medical history. Football players who are suing the NFL because of fears of future damage from past concussions have proof of their concussions. My records showed only “a laceration” rather than the severe concussion I had. How could any doctor ever accurately assess my problems if he had a false medical history? And how could anyone do an accurate investigation when they were given false information?

One evening in ICU a former co-worker witnessed a near-death experience I suffered from a clot and an allergic reaction. For thirty to forty-five minutes I was unable to breathe as tubes and scopes were inserted and water poured into a new tracheotomy. During this unimaginably horrifying experience, I felt that UCLA was literally trying to kill me. That terror stayed with me the next day when I wrote on my notepad that I had to get away from UCLA because I feared I would be murdered there. It was an unconscious replay of my feelings at the Medical Center in 2001. I trusted my surgeon and his team and was grateful for their expertise. But the torture inflicted by the University after the attack in the parking lot created physical and psychological wounds that still cannot heal.

I left ICU weighing seventy pounds instead of my normal one hundred twenty. My focus was on regaining strength and learning to live with the permanent physical and emotional damage I had suffered. It has been difficult. The impediment to recovery continued to be the University’s inexplicably devastating cruelty in response to my career-ending, life-altering injuries. There could never have been a fair investigation into my case because the information provided by the University was all false. Even Cynthia Cohen and Milan Botica, whose investigations were aborted at the campus police station, could not have come to a fair and accurate conclusion because my medical records were falsified. My multiple injuries were reduced to “a laceration,” and the attack became “an unconscious episode.”

Earlier this year William H. Cormier spoke for Chancellor Block, U.C. President Yudof, and the Office of the Regents, in response to my demand for answers—not concerning the cause of my injuries—I never asked the University for that—but the cause of the University’s abusive treatment of me. Mr. Cormier once again resorted to a cover-up and continued the University’s conspiracy to abuse me. He regrets that I remain “dissatisfied with the University’s investigation into the cause of the injuries for which you were treated at the UCLA Medical Center in 2001.” Once again I will reiterate: That was never the issue. I never asked the University to investigate the “cause of my injuries.” My issue is with the injuries inflicted by the University. The “investigation” into the “cause of the injuries for which you were treated at the UCLA Medical Center in 2001” was done by Dr. Meserve, Dr. Hartenbrauer and others who looked at my multiple wounds. Their conclusion was that I was attacked. The police obviously couldn’t conclude that—as the University continues to maintain—because the police never investigated the cause of my injuries. Never even looked at my injuries.

 The cause of my injuries was investigated during three days of tests in the hospital. Nothing was found wrong with me--except an assault, which was the cause of my "unconscious episode."

William H. Cormier says, “However, your recent message raises no new issues that have not already been addressed by the University, and I must refer you to my previous letters…” The University never addressed the old issues. It never addressed any of my issues. Ever. Mr. Cormier’s previous letters, to which he refers me, are merely reiterations of Manny Garza’s discredited lies and misrepresentations of our meeting with Det. Duenas a month after the attack. If this isn’t a continuing conspiracy to cover up what was done to me by the University, what could it be called?

It is a torment to write this and a torment to receive unresponsive replies which insult my intelligence and are an affront to even rudimentary logic and reason. It is worse, however, to suffer the permanent physical disabilities, the pain, the financial worries, and the ongoing emotional stress which disrupts my sleep with hideous nightmares of being tortured by UCLA. All of these injuries have been caused by the University’s blatant and unbearably cruel cover-up of a crime. That crime was reported—by my sister to my unit; by Ginny, the nurse on my unit, to campus police. She later said they didn’t seem interested. They weren’t, but it was incumbent on them to respond and go to the scene, parking lot 8, which she reported to them to investigate a crime. Instead, they did nothing. My sister and I reported time and location of an attack to emergency room personnel. It was incumbent on them to relay their information to campus police. Manny Garza’s letter admits that police responded only to the emergency room. The letter suggests this constituted an “investigation.” But spending a few brief moments with a badly injured, semi-conscious woman does not constitute an investigation. Reporting that nothing was missing from my “purse”—when I had a backpack, not a purse—and a backpack which neither my sister nor I had checked—becomes a big and obvious police lie. And William H. Cormier’s repetition of that big lie does not make it true. It makes it an ongoing University conspiracy to cover up a crime.

I am long overdue for a check-up by my surgeon, but I cannot bring myself to go near UCLA. Although these doctors indisputably saved my life, flashbacks of the pain intentionally inflicted on me by the University—including the lies in my medical records from 2001—haunt me and prevent me from moving on. I don’t need any more lies and cover-up from the University; I need closure and compensation for my losses. I have been lied to and lied about, conspired against by the police and various other UCLA administrators. I never recovered from the attack on me and it resulted in me sustaining a permanent injury in the form of a jaw removal and replacement by the fibula from my left leg.

I am no longer afraid of the machinations of campus police, University officials, or the assailant who left me for dead. I’ve lived too long with fear. I simply cannot tolerate this sleazy cover up and its detrimental effects on me and my family. I will pursue justice and fair compensation, however long it takes and wherever the pursuit takes me. It is encouraging that other victims of abuse, such as those caught in the administration cover up at Penn State, will be receiving some justice when the administrators go to trial.