May 30, 2024 • 29 mins
Paul Pringle speaks with Sarah and Charles’ parents, survivors of George Tyndall, professors at USC, and his colleagues at the LA Times about where they are now, what change has – or hasn’t – come as a result of their work, and what accountability looks like today at USC, and The LA Times.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I first got the tip about the incident at the
hotel Constance back in the spring of twenty sixteen. Eventually
I learned about Carmen Puliofido, the dean of the medical
school at USC, and the young woman who odeed there,
Sarah Warren. Eight years later, many things have changed, but
others have not. I'm Paul Pringle. This is Fallen Angels,
(00:25):
Episode ten. In this final installment of our show, I'll
revisit some of the people in places we've talked about,
a kind of epilogue. George Tindall, the former gynecologist at
USC's student Health Clinic, was arrested by the LAPD in
(00:49):
June of twenty nineteen. He was charged with more than
thirty felonies. When I last interviewed survivors Lucy g and
Audrey Nassager in the summer of twenty twenty three, Yindall
had still not gone to trial. He was living at
home under house arrest. I periodically check in with Lucy
and Audrey on what's happened since.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, George Tindall has died, and he died before the
LEDA even bothered to get us closer to trial, and
that was a huge disappointment because none of us got justice.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And it was quite a delay. Leave The story ran
in twenty May of twenty eighteen, and he died five
years later and nothing had happened in the meantime. He
was arrested in charge, but no trial, and he was free.
He was out on bail and live in his life.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's pretty unheard of in the criminal law for case
to take five years, even a murder case usually has
tried before that. It's very obvious that the authority slow
walked to this case.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Lucy, how did you feel when you heard the news
of Tyndall's death.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So I was getting ready to go to court who
were trying to set the first court date, and then
I got a message that they were postponing the court
date because Tyndall had died, and that the next court
date would be to dismiss the case and dismiss the trial.
And I was so devastated.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did you speak to each other about this when you
heard the news?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Lucy texted me right away and it wasn't one hundred
percent confirmed yet, but we started talking immediately about what
had happened and how we were going to go to
court and tell the court how we felt about this
and let other survivors know, so we could get a
group together and just let everybody know. The district attorney
had in their hands homemade videotape that doctor Tindall made
(02:32):
of himself performing sexual acts on women in the Philippines
and telling them during the acts, this is what I
do to my patients. So that's just one of many
things the police recovered from him that are the smoking
gun evidence. He knew what he was doing was wrong,
(02:54):
so there's no way he wanted a trial. He escaped
justice by dying. He got to live in his home
the entire time and spent just a couple of days
in jail. In some ways, he beat this case. As
far as for him, he beat it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
There are no plans to prosecute anyone else as far
as you know.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
In the Tindal matter, detectives didn't ask any questions about
anyone else and their complicity, or any of the people
that paid him off, any of the authority, and so
there will be no further investigation as far as I
can tell.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Andrea and I spoke with one of the people that
was investigating the case for the DA's office, and they
indicated that they want to do the case differently and
that their hands were tied.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I have a profound sense of frustration with the criminal
justice system, where I have now worked this month for
thirty years, and it's just so frustrating to be on
the victim side of a horrific crime and to see
how justice can be completely not achieved, not a team,
and because the authorities didn't want justice. If they wanted
(03:59):
this case to get resolved, they would have pushed it forward,
and they didn't, and I think they got the result
that they wanted. He was old, and I was concerned
about him dying from the minute they filed this case,
and they drug their heels at every turn.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So I've been trying to look on the bright side
of things. I've made lifelong friendships because of this. You know,
there's some silver lining, but it is.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Very disheartening.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We did get a lot done, We got a lot
of legislation passed, We built a lot of friendships. We
worked on some I call them the Naughty Doctor bills,
so that the institutions must report to their governing boards
that once some a doctor has been reprimanded, he or
she must provide and must provide written materials to every
patient walking in the door. We moved the ball down
(04:51):
the field in that there's more room that can be
done for sure for accountability and lifting the statute of
limitations for survivors of university sexual assault. That was one
of the biggest bills that we helped storm the Capitol
and Sacramento and march around and tell our stories and
got that bill passed through legislation and then signed by
the governor. And that was that was huge.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And actually that similar bill that passed to New York
is what allowed Ejing Carroll to sue Donald Trump. I
hoped it changed the culture in the nation too. I
hope that people seeing Eagan Carroll get her a measure
of justice will help women everywhere and the next generation
too realize that that people believe women, people believe victims.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Finally, as for common Puliafido, to this day, he has
never faced any criminal charges besides getting fired by USC.
(05:54):
The only real consequence Puliafido has faced is losing his
medical license, and he's been busy trying to get it reinstated.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Maybe a year or two ago, I was contacted by
California Medical Board and they have a criminal investigative division
that reached out to me.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
That's Miriam Jones. Dori Yoda's sister. Dora is the young
woman in Puliafido's circle whose baby.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Died, and it was a particular detective who asked me
some questions. She said that Puliafido was attempting to regain
his medical license. She wanted to see if there was
any information I had to prevent him from getting his
license that would help her case against him, and I
told her to contact Dora's landlord and see if he
(06:44):
is still getting his payments from Puliaffido. Puliafido is still
paying for all of my sister's bills because my sister
still lives there, and I know that because I drive
by her house sometimes in check to see if she's
still there. The detective reached out to the landlord of
my sister's apartment and yes, he is getting his usual
(07:05):
rent from Puliafido every single month, and even told her
that he sees him there on a regular basis physically
at her house. So the medical board denied him his
license because part of the agreement for him to get
it back is obviously he can't be on drugs and
he can't have contact with Dora because she's on drugs,
(07:27):
and so then he didn't get his license back. It
was denied.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
The Medical Board of California rejected Pulliafiedo's petition to reinstate
his license in January of twenty twenty three. The ruling
was based in part on the findings that Pulliafido had
tested positive four times for use of meth or heroine
in the past three years. The judge who presided over
the Medical Board hearing didn't buy Pulliafiedo's claim that the
(07:53):
test results were false positives or that they came from
quote environmental exposure. Miriam Jones continues to please with the
La County Sheriff's Department in the DA's office to do
something to help her sister escape Pulliafido's influence. As for
the Warren family, for a while it seemed they had
broken pullia Fido's toxic hold on Sarah and the grip
(08:15):
of her drug addiction. The family moved back to Texas
and worked hard to rebuild their lives. I often spoke
to Sarah. She remained frustrated that Pulliafido was never prosecuted,
but she was also trying to move on because of
a restrictive NDA that USC required them to sign. Paul
and Marianne Warren believed they can't talk about anything related
(08:37):
to the Pulliafido case, but they can't speak generally about
their family and their children and what happened after the
return to Texas.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
When she came, she was with us, and then she
went and got an apartment, and then she came home
and yeah, for oh gosh, I guess seven months, and we.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Were overjoyed to have her back. And she was working.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I think waiting tables, and she bought her two cats home.
And Charles was enrolled at the what's it called Long.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Start, Yeah, so I kind of a community college theaters.
So yeah, the two of them like spent a lot
of time together.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
And we're out in the movie room, you see, oh sir, Yeah, yeah,
And they went out to eat a lot and you know,
just that they're having a really good time some bowling
to they bowled, so they like that. And Charles had
a girlfriend and Sarah actually liked her, because she never
(09:42):
liked any of his girlfriends, but she liked this one.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So that was good.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
But in the end, the devastating power of addiction overwhelmed
the Warren family. On February fourth, twenty twenty three, at
the age of twenty seven, Sarah Warren died at the
family home outside Houston. The cause of death was a
cute pancreatitis due to chronic alcoholism. Then, on May twenty six,
(10:14):
just four months after Sarah's death, Charles passed away. His
cause of death was also due to chronic alcoholism. He
was twenty four.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
It was primarily alcohol. They probably smoked a little weed,
but it was an alcohol and they just didn't have
a good handle on it.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And I know again YouTube did everything you could to
try to help them get out from under that addiction.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Absolutely rehabs. Oh my gosh, it didn't stick. It just
didn't stick somehow. I think Charles gave up when Sarah
wasn't around. Yeah when yeah, I think so too, just
(11:10):
kind of gave up.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Sarah and Charles' brave decision to go on the record
is what finally cost Pulia Fido his medical license and
his association with USC is why he's no longer in
a position to hurt people while collecting a million dollar salary.
Devon Khan, the whistleblower who first brought the La Times
the tip from the hotel. Constance shares what Sarah's loss
(11:34):
means to him.
Speaker 8 (11:36):
A part of me feels that all of the work
that I did and everything that Paul did to dig
at the truth was wasted because ultimately she unfortunately passed.
The faulest that I held onto was that I saved
that gross life, and to hear that that she passed unfortunate. Certainly,
(12:00):
it's just a shame and just my knowledge of drug
abuse and the devastation that it wreeks on people. If
someone's badly addicted to drugs, it'll make them do things
that you know they would never ever normally do. And
I knew that Sarah was in that situation because of
(12:22):
the drugs, So yeah, it hit me on a special level.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Don Stokes, the Huntington Beach DJ who dated Sarah briefly,
also went on the record with The La Times about
what he witnessed with Puliafido Down likes to think of
this Erah. He knew the young woman with so much promise.
Speaker 9 (12:47):
Her smile could light up her room. Their eyes dazzled
like the tide pools in the Gunna Beach, in the
sunny day and there was a certain spark about her
that and be captivated, you know, my sir my sincereus
apologies to Mary and her husband, but I pray for
(13:11):
their souls.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Lots of great memories, you know, and that's where we
choose to put our energies and not dwell on something
that's you know, horrific that's happened to our family. It's hard,
it's very hard, but we choose to look at the
positives because.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We can't do anything about it, you.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Know, and you can only cry so much over it.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We choose to look at.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
The positive and remember them in a significant way when
they were well.
Speaker 10 (13:48):
Well.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Sarah's very smart.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
She was always in the gifted classes and make it
straight A's she was very effrevents it and bubbly.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
She loved the animals. We sent her to Montessori school.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
They put together at Christmas social and Sarah walks after
and felt the solo song war and everybody's like looking
over says, oh my god, you got Britney spears underhand.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
He was very athletic and he loved the skateboard. He
would like skateboard over like ten steps or something that
was crazy.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
So he was just a kid that was always outside
and always always had friends, and always doing something that
was a physical generally.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
He had a sense of humor too.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
He was very funny when you say, and the two
of them had a fantastic relationship.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Really, we're just thick as thieves, the two of them.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
After pressuring the board of to force Max Nikias out,
the USC faculty expected the university would make a real
effort to end the long run of scandals, the corrupt
culture that allowed people like pull your fee to inintendle
to do what they did while the administration looked the
other way. They've been disappointed.
Speaker 11 (15:18):
This was a leadership problem. It was not a culture
among students. It was not a culture among faculty. It
was a culture at the top, a culture of secrecy, centralization,
cover up.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Doctor Ariela Gross, formerly a professor at USC, has since
joined the faculty at UCLA.
Speaker 11 (15:39):
I don't think it's a secret, right how you could
improve your processes to bring more sunshine in, but they
did not want to do that. Let's make the way
we choose deans and other administrators more like the way
they do it at a public school. Let's get more
transparent and see, let's get more faculty governance, Let's get
(16:02):
more accountability, and those things went nowhere. The board immediately
renegged on the promises to release the report.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Doctor Gross is referring to the results of USC's internal
investigations into the administration's handling of Pulliafido and Tindall. The trustees,
led at the time by real estate tycoon Rick Caruso,
had promised to make the findings public. That promise has
been broken.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
The lawyers, the people that signed off the two hundred
thousand dollars hush money payment, the names of the people
that approved that were ever released. They clearly knew what
was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Here's Audrey again, she's referring to the Tyndall severance money.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We've got problems with the chairman of the boards that
he released the report never did. How can you improve
if you don't show what really happened.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The trustee's decision not to release the reports became an
issue when Rick Caruso ran for mayor of Los Angeles
in twenty twenty two. Here he is at the KNX
News mayoral to fielding questions from skeptical voters.
Speaker 12 (17:02):
The reason we didn't release a report. We talked to experts,
many of them that said, releasing any information is just
going to cause more horrific pain to those that have
been terribly, terribly wounded.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So we chose not to do it for that reason.
But the La Times later learned that Caruso, under oath
in a secret deposition for the Tendel civil suit, gave
a different reason for burying the findings. It was not
a concern for the victims. It was because USC's lawyers
told them to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's hard to escape the reality that there's some very
powerful and influential people on the board of directors at USC,
and I'm sure when this came to light the full
scope of the problem that there were many discussions with
people on the board and people high up in the administration.
I think people were afraid of being held to account,
(17:58):
going to jail, having the repeatations be smirched. There's lots
of reasons that the university wouldn't want that information out there.
The message isn't tell the messages shut up.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Sindy Gilbert, the nursing supervisor, certainly got the message. After
she reported Tyndall to the Rape Crisis Center, the university
rescinded the promotion she'd been promised. The university's HR department
accused her of making an inappropriate remark to a coworker.
None of this struck Cindy as a coincidence. Fearing it
would never end, she resigned in July of twenty seventeen.
(18:33):
Doctor Jane John, who helped lead the faculty effort to Ausnikias,
also faced blowback after she appeared in a student documentary
about Tyndall called Breach of Trust.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
I swore in the video. I think I said BS
or hell or damn or something like that. They've investigated
me for a year and they found that I had
violated the faculty handbook for swearing, to which I said,
are you fucking kidding me? I'm joking, And so I
(19:03):
got investigated after that came out. Was obviously absurd, but
you know what, that's retaliation, right. It's probably going to
happen again, but it's worth it. It's worth that somebody has.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
To say it.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The whistleblowers at USC may feel that speaking out cost them,
but at the la times, our investigative work was eventually
honored and encouraged. In April of twenty nineteen, the reporting
untindalled by Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan, and me when the
Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism.
Speaker 14 (19:35):
Everyone in the newsroom was gathered around us. It was
very surreal because ultimately, this is a story about sexual
assault and sexual abuse, and it's very head spinning to
be celebrating the revelation of that and reporting around that.
Speaker 15 (19:54):
Reporter Matt Hamilton, I recognized that it was bigger than
us as well, validation of what the newspaper had done,
of what a team of people editors, reporters, researchers, copy editors, photographers.
Speaker 16 (20:10):
It's a validation of that collaboration. I was able to
see our work differently and the commulative effect of these
incremental stories and the commulative effect of just stay in
and day out reporting on the university and doctor Tindall
for by that point years. I felt proud and really
(20:31):
glad to be with Paul and Harriet.
Speaker 10 (20:33):
There thinking about all the doors we knocked on, and
particular people who could have turned us away, who maybe
the smart thing was to turn us away, but had
led us into their homes and had told us the truth,
and they did so at a risked to their jobs.
And I guess it's just sort of amazed.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
At them, Reporter Harriet Ryan. The thing that the.
Speaker 10 (20:55):
Tindall case is that the victims were the patients, But
often the patients didn't realize what had happened to them,
how bad it was, and they didn't realize that it
happened to hundreds of or thousands.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Of other people.
Speaker 10 (21:08):
But the people that worked in the clinic who had
to witness it, they knew it every day, several times
a day, and they were their own kind of victims.
So I was thinking about those people, and I just
it was very emotional.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I believe that Pulletzer also belongs to our colleagues Sarah
Parvini and Adam il Marik, in recognition of their great
work on the Polia Fido investigation, the story that led
us to Tindall.
Speaker 17 (21:31):
So many more pieces of thread were coming loose after
that initial.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Investigation, Reporter Sarah Parvini.
Speaker 17 (21:39):
And eventually there's the investigation that Paul and Matt and
Harriet got a Pulitzer for. Learned that investigations beget investigations.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
In July twenty twenty two, McMillan published my book Bad City,
Peril and Power in the City of Angels. It tells
the untold stories behind the story of Puliafido and Tyndall,
as well as what happened at my own newspaper seven
months before it was published. As I got close to
finishing the manuscript, I gave all three former La Times
(22:14):
editors an opportunity to respond to my reporting for the book.
They turned me down and instead hired lawyers and threatened lawsuits.
I had no doubt that they'd hoped to stop publication
of Bad City, or at minimum since to the portions
of the book that were critical of them. I found
it extraordinary that they would engage in what I saw
as their own personal pursuit of journalistic prior restraint two
(22:38):
words that to find the mortal enemy of the First Amendment.
Nothing those editors or their lawyers have claimed has refuted
anything in Bad City. The same is true for the
attacks the editors leveled on the book me and my
colleagues after publication. Dave On Maharaj, Mark Duvison and Matt
Doug continued to deny that they did anything wrong in
(22:59):
their handling of the USC investigation, and as for Carmen, Puliafido,
and Max Nichias, they never granted me an interview under
any circumstances. The La Times newsroom is seeing other big
(23:19):
changes since we first started reporting on Pulliofido. In February
twenty eighteen, the billionaire biotech entrepreneur doctor Patrick soon Shown
announced that he was buying the La Times from Trunk.
Patrick and his wife Michelle saved the paper from certain
death as a first rate news organization.
Speaker 18 (23:39):
Patrick Sounshan kind of swoops in as this savior for
the papers.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
That's Joe Pompeo, media correspondent for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 18 (23:48):
For all intents and purposes, seems like what a lot
of struggled news organizations wish for, which is a very
rich individual who can kind of come in reset the
place and take some losses because they have a lot
of money to do that, but also has ambition to
make this a real business.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Harriet and reporter Adam Almarik felt the same way.
Speaker 10 (24:11):
I feel like it's a little bit of a fairy
tale in some ways, like forcing out the bad management
and then forming a union and then getting a billionaire
to buy the paper, a billionaire who is like a
benevolent figure who's invested lots and lots of funny in us.
I feel really lucky to work at the La.
Speaker 19 (24:29):
Times and stay at night as far as the atmosphere
of the newsra the kind of newspaper that we are. Look,
there's nobody's perfect. No ownership is a perfect situation. That's
just that's just life, right. But you know, at least
now I have not once felt like we're doing something
for the wrong reasons or we don't have the right
(24:52):
mission in mind.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Doctor soon shown went on a hiring spree, adding about
one hundred and fifty journalists to the newsroom. But since
the cost of supporting journalism has only gotten steeper. All
across the media industry, we've seen significant layoffs and other cuts,
including at The Times, where annual losses were in the
tens of millions of dollars. Here's Joe Pompeo again.
Speaker 18 (25:15):
This current season of layoffs and contraction industry, I think
definitely felt to some people like the worst it's been
since this was happening back in two thousand and eight
with the crash and the recession, when things really started
to nose dive in the media industry and hundreds and
hundreds of journalists put out of work, relatively few jobs available,
(25:38):
and probably more people than ever trying to apply for
those jobs.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
It does feel like a.
Speaker 18 (25:44):
Moment where if you ever were going to consider finding
a more lucrat field to be in, this might be
the thing that pushes you over the edge.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Even with the layoffs, the Times remains by far the
largest news operation this side of the Potomac, and the
soon Shown family says it remained committed to the paper,
which is one five more bulletzers since Tindall. So I
find there is still much to be hopeful about, especially
when it comes to investigative journalism.
Speaker 18 (26:09):
Often those types of big swing investigations that end up
resulting in a five thousand word expose a that's not
just something that is holding the powerful to account or
exposing wrongdoing. It's also generally those types of stories which
are generating the most interest among readers and therefore also
(26:30):
tend to be the ones that make people want to
subscribe to a place like the La Times. So I
don't think that investigative journalism is necessarily the first obvious
thing to go, even though it is kind of one
of the more expensive things to sustain.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
In a newsroom.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Harriet shares my view, I'm.
Speaker 10 (26:45):
Feeling depressed about journalism but the thing about investigative journalism.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Is it's supposed to.
Speaker 10 (26:52):
Tell people something that they don't know and they actually
can't find online. It can't be replaced by AI. That's
the whole point of investigative journalism. So I feel like
it's very powerful still, and maybe it would be like
one of the last things standing in journalism would be
investigative journalism.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
In so many cases, investigative journalism does not happen without
brave people like the warrants, the folks who often risk
everything just to get the truth out. Of course, the
risk is even greater when they speak the truth on
the record in clear public view, knowing there could be
a terrible price to pay. Sarah and Charles Warren did that,
(27:32):
and their courage set in motion a series of events
that brought down powerful people who needed to be brought down.
Of all the names you've heard in this story, I
hope theirs are the ones you remember again. I'm Paul Pringle.
Thanks for listening to Fallen Angels, the story of California corruption.
(27:54):
I'm still an investigative reporter for The Times, and I
hope you continue to support local journalism in LA and elsewhere.
Fallen Angels The Story of California Corruption is a production
of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios. I'm
(28:16):
Paul Pringle. This show is based on my book Bad City,
Peril and Power in the City of Angels. Fallen Angels
was written by Isabel Evans, Adam Pinkas, and Brent Katz.
Isabel Evans is our producer. Brent Katz is co producer.
Associate producers are Hannah Leebowitz Lockhart and On Pajo Locke.
(28:37):
Executive producers are Me, Paul Pringle, Joe Picarello, and Adam
Pinkas for Best Case Studios. Original music is by James Newberry.
This episode was edited by Max Michael Miller, with assistants
from Nisha Venkat, Additional editings, Hound design and additional music
by Dean White, Harriet, Ryan, Matt Hamilton, Sarah Parvini and
(28:58):
Adam Almarik are consulted in producers. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Carl Catle. Follow and rate Fallen Angels
wherever you get your podcasts.
I first got the tip about the incident at the
hotel Constance back in the spring of twenty sixteen. Eventually
I learned about Carmen Puliofido, the dean of the medical
school at USC, and the young woman who odeed there,
Sarah Warren. Eight years later, many things have changed, but
others have not. I'm Paul Pringle. This is Fallen Angels,
(00:25):
Episode ten. In this final installment of our show, I'll
revisit some of the people in places we've talked about,
a kind of epilogue. George Tindall, the former gynecologist at
USC's student Health Clinic, was arrested by the LAPD in
(00:49):
June of twenty nineteen. He was charged with more than
thirty felonies. When I last interviewed survivors Lucy g and
Audrey Nassager in the summer of twenty twenty three, Yindall
had still not gone to trial. He was living at
home under house arrest. I periodically check in with Lucy
and Audrey on what's happened since.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, George Tindall has died, and he died before the
LEDA even bothered to get us closer to trial, and
that was a huge disappointment because none of us got justice.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And it was quite a delay. Leave The story ran
in twenty May of twenty eighteen, and he died five
years later and nothing had happened in the meantime. He
was arrested in charge, but no trial, and he was free.
He was out on bail and live in his life.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's pretty unheard of in the criminal law for case
to take five years, even a murder case usually has
tried before that. It's very obvious that the authority slow
walked to this case.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Lucy, how did you feel when you heard the news
of Tyndall's death.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So I was getting ready to go to court who
were trying to set the first court date, and then
I got a message that they were postponing the court
date because Tyndall had died, and that the next court
date would be to dismiss the case and dismiss the trial.
And I was so devastated.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did you speak to each other about this when you
heard the news?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Lucy texted me right away and it wasn't one hundred
percent confirmed yet, but we started talking immediately about what
had happened and how we were going to go to
court and tell the court how we felt about this
and let other survivors know, so we could get a
group together and just let everybody know. The district attorney
had in their hands homemade videotape that doctor Tindall made
(02:32):
of himself performing sexual acts on women in the Philippines
and telling them during the acts, this is what I
do to my patients. So that's just one of many
things the police recovered from him that are the smoking
gun evidence. He knew what he was doing was wrong,
(02:54):
so there's no way he wanted a trial. He escaped
justice by dying. He got to live in his home
the entire time and spent just a couple of days
in jail. In some ways, he beat this case. As
far as for him, he beat it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
There are no plans to prosecute anyone else as far
as you know.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
In the Tindal matter, detectives didn't ask any questions about
anyone else and their complicity, or any of the people
that paid him off, any of the authority, and so
there will be no further investigation as far as I
can tell.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Andrea and I spoke with one of the people that
was investigating the case for the DA's office, and they
indicated that they want to do the case differently and
that their hands were tied.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I have a profound sense of frustration with the criminal
justice system, where I have now worked this month for
thirty years, and it's just so frustrating to be on
the victim side of a horrific crime and to see
how justice can be completely not achieved, not a team,
and because the authorities didn't want justice. If they wanted
(03:59):
this case to get resolved, they would have pushed it forward,
and they didn't, and I think they got the result
that they wanted. He was old, and I was concerned
about him dying from the minute they filed this case,
and they drug their heels at every turn.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
So I've been trying to look on the bright side
of things. I've made lifelong friendships because of this. You know,
there's some silver lining, but it is.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Very disheartening.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We did get a lot done, We got a lot
of legislation passed, We built a lot of friendships. We
worked on some I call them the Naughty Doctor bills,
so that the institutions must report to their governing boards
that once some a doctor has been reprimanded, he or
she must provide and must provide written materials to every
patient walking in the door. We moved the ball down
(04:51):
the field in that there's more room that can be
done for sure for accountability and lifting the statute of
limitations for survivors of university sexual assault. That was one
of the biggest bills that we helped storm the Capitol
and Sacramento and march around and tell our stories and
got that bill passed through legislation and then signed by
the governor. And that was that was huge.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And actually that similar bill that passed to New York
is what allowed Ejing Carroll to sue Donald Trump. I
hoped it changed the culture in the nation too. I
hope that people seeing Eagan Carroll get her a measure
of justice will help women everywhere and the next generation
too realize that that people believe women, people believe victims.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Now.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Finally, as for common Puliafido, to this day, he has
never faced any criminal charges besides getting fired by USC.
(05:54):
The only real consequence Puliafido has faced is losing his
medical license, and he's been busy trying to get it reinstated.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Maybe a year or two ago, I was contacted by
California Medical Board and they have a criminal investigative division
that reached out to me.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
That's Miriam Jones. Dori Yoda's sister. Dora is the young
woman in Puliafido's circle whose baby.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Died, and it was a particular detective who asked me
some questions. She said that Puliafido was attempting to regain
his medical license. She wanted to see if there was
any information I had to prevent him from getting his
license that would help her case against him, and I
told her to contact Dora's landlord and see if he
(06:44):
is still getting his payments from Puliaffido. Puliafido is still
paying for all of my sister's bills because my sister
still lives there, and I know that because I drive
by her house sometimes in check to see if she's
still there. The detective reached out to the landlord of
my sister's apartment and yes, he is getting his usual
(07:05):
rent from Puliafido every single month, and even told her
that he sees him there on a regular basis physically
at her house. So the medical board denied him his
license because part of the agreement for him to get
it back is obviously he can't be on drugs and
he can't have contact with Dora because she's on drugs,
(07:27):
and so then he didn't get his license back. It
was denied.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
The Medical Board of California rejected Pulliafiedo's petition to reinstate
his license in January of twenty twenty three. The ruling
was based in part on the findings that Pulliafido had
tested positive four times for use of meth or heroine
in the past three years. The judge who presided over
the Medical Board hearing didn't buy Pulliafiedo's claim that the
(07:53):
test results were false positives or that they came from
quote environmental exposure. Miriam Jones continues to please with the
La County Sheriff's Department in the DA's office to do
something to help her sister escape Pulliafido's influence. As for
the Warren family, for a while it seemed they had
broken pullia Fido's toxic hold on Sarah and the grip
(08:15):
of her drug addiction. The family moved back to Texas
and worked hard to rebuild their lives. I often spoke
to Sarah. She remained frustrated that Pulliafido was never prosecuted,
but she was also trying to move on because of
a restrictive NDA that USC required them to sign. Paul
and Marianne Warren believed they can't talk about anything related
(08:37):
to the Pulliafido case, but they can't speak generally about
their family and their children and what happened after the
return to Texas.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
When she came, she was with us, and then she
went and got an apartment, and then she came home
and yeah, for oh gosh, I guess seven months, and we.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Were overjoyed to have her back. And she was working.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I think waiting tables, and she bought her two cats home.
And Charles was enrolled at the what's it called Long.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Start, Yeah, so I kind of a community college theaters.
So yeah, the two of them like spent a lot
of time together.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
And we're out in the movie room, you see, oh sir, Yeah, yeah,
And they went out to eat a lot and you know,
just that they're having a really good time some bowling
to they bowled, so they like that. And Charles had
a girlfriend and Sarah actually liked her, because she never
(09:42):
liked any of his girlfriends, but she liked this one.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So that was good.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
But in the end, the devastating power of addiction overwhelmed
the Warren family. On February fourth, twenty twenty three, at
the age of twenty seven, Sarah Warren died at the
family home outside Houston. The cause of death was a
cute pancreatitis due to chronic alcoholism. Then, on May twenty six,
(10:14):
just four months after Sarah's death, Charles passed away. His
cause of death was also due to chronic alcoholism. He
was twenty four.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
It was primarily alcohol. They probably smoked a little weed,
but it was an alcohol and they just didn't have
a good handle on it.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And I know again YouTube did everything you could to
try to help them get out from under that addiction.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
Absolutely rehabs. Oh my gosh, it didn't stick. It just
didn't stick somehow. I think Charles gave up when Sarah
wasn't around. Yeah when yeah, I think so too, just
(11:10):
kind of gave up.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Sarah and Charles' brave decision to go on the record
is what finally cost Pulia Fido his medical license and
his association with USC is why he's no longer in
a position to hurt people while collecting a million dollar salary.
Devon Khan, the whistleblower who first brought the La Times
the tip from the hotel. Constance shares what Sarah's loss
(11:34):
means to him.
Speaker 8 (11:36):
A part of me feels that all of the work
that I did and everything that Paul did to dig
at the truth was wasted because ultimately she unfortunately passed.
The faulest that I held onto was that I saved
that gross life, and to hear that that she passed unfortunate. Certainly,
(12:00):
it's just a shame and just my knowledge of drug
abuse and the devastation that it wreeks on people. If
someone's badly addicted to drugs, it'll make them do things
that you know they would never ever normally do. And
I knew that Sarah was in that situation because of
(12:22):
the drugs, So yeah, it hit me on a special level.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Don Stokes, the Huntington Beach DJ who dated Sarah briefly,
also went on the record with The La Times about
what he witnessed with Puliafido Down likes to think of
this Erah. He knew the young woman with so much promise.
Speaker 9 (12:47):
Her smile could light up her room. Their eyes dazzled
like the tide pools in the Gunna Beach, in the
sunny day and there was a certain spark about her
that and be captivated, you know, my sir my sincereus
apologies to Mary and her husband, but I pray for
(13:11):
their souls.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Lots of great memories, you know, and that's where we
choose to put our energies and not dwell on something
that's you know, horrific that's happened to our family. It's hard,
it's very hard, but we choose to look at the
positives because.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
We can't do anything about it, you.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
Know, and you can only cry so much over it.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
We choose to look at.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
The positive and remember them in a significant way when
they were well.
Speaker 10 (13:48):
Well.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Sarah's very smart.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
She was always in the gifted classes and make it
straight A's she was very effrevents it and bubbly.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
She loved the animals. We sent her to Montessori school.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
They put together at Christmas social and Sarah walks after
and felt the solo song war and everybody's like looking
over says, oh my god, you got Britney spears underhand.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
He was very athletic and he loved the skateboard. He
would like skateboard over like ten steps or something that
was crazy.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
So he was just a kid that was always outside
and always always had friends, and always doing something that
was a physical generally.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
He had a sense of humor too.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
He was very funny when you say, and the two
of them had a fantastic relationship.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Really, we're just thick as thieves, the two of them.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
After pressuring the board of to force Max Nikias out,
the USC faculty expected the university would make a real
effort to end the long run of scandals, the corrupt
culture that allowed people like pull your fee to inintendle
to do what they did while the administration looked the
other way. They've been disappointed.
Speaker 11 (15:18):
This was a leadership problem. It was not a culture
among students. It was not a culture among faculty. It
was a culture at the top, a culture of secrecy, centralization,
cover up.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Doctor Ariela Gross, formerly a professor at USC, has since
joined the faculty at UCLA.
Speaker 11 (15:39):
I don't think it's a secret, right how you could
improve your processes to bring more sunshine in, but they
did not want to do that. Let's make the way
we choose deans and other administrators more like the way
they do it at a public school. Let's get more
transparent and see, let's get more faculty governance, Let's get
(16:02):
more accountability, and those things went nowhere. The board immediately
renegged on the promises to release the report.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Doctor Gross is referring to the results of USC's internal
investigations into the administration's handling of Pulliafido and Tindall. The trustees,
led at the time by real estate tycoon Rick Caruso,
had promised to make the findings public. That promise has
been broken.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
The lawyers, the people that signed off the two hundred
thousand dollars hush money payment, the names of the people
that approved that were ever released. They clearly knew what
was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Here's Audrey again, she's referring to the Tyndall severance money.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We've got problems with the chairman of the boards that
he released the report never did. How can you improve
if you don't show what really happened.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The trustee's decision not to release the reports became an
issue when Rick Caruso ran for mayor of Los Angeles
in twenty twenty two. Here he is at the KNX
News mayoral to fielding questions from skeptical voters.
Speaker 12 (17:02):
The reason we didn't release a report. We talked to experts,
many of them that said, releasing any information is just
going to cause more horrific pain to those that have
been terribly, terribly wounded.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So we chose not to do it for that reason.
But the La Times later learned that Caruso, under oath
in a secret deposition for the Tendel civil suit, gave
a different reason for burying the findings. It was not
a concern for the victims. It was because USC's lawyers
told them to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's hard to escape the reality that there's some very
powerful and influential people on the board of directors at USC,
and I'm sure when this came to light the full
scope of the problem that there were many discussions with
people on the board and people high up in the administration.
I think people were afraid of being held to account,
(17:58):
going to jail, having the repeatations be smirched. There's lots
of reasons that the university wouldn't want that information out there.
The message isn't tell the messages shut up.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Sindy Gilbert, the nursing supervisor, certainly got the message. After
she reported Tyndall to the Rape Crisis Center, the university
rescinded the promotion she'd been promised. The university's HR department
accused her of making an inappropriate remark to a coworker.
None of this struck Cindy as a coincidence. Fearing it
would never end, she resigned in July of twenty seventeen.
(18:33):
Doctor Jane John, who helped lead the faculty effort to Ausnikias,
also faced blowback after she appeared in a student documentary
about Tyndall called Breach of Trust.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
I swore in the video. I think I said BS
or hell or damn or something like that. They've investigated
me for a year and they found that I had
violated the faculty handbook for swearing, to which I said,
are you fucking kidding me? I'm joking, And so I
(19:03):
got investigated after that came out. Was obviously absurd, but
you know what, that's retaliation, right. It's probably going to
happen again, but it's worth it. It's worth that somebody has.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
To say it.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
The whistleblowers at USC may feel that speaking out cost them,
but at the la times, our investigative work was eventually
honored and encouraged. In April of twenty nineteen, the reporting
untindalled by Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan, and me when the
Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism.
Speaker 14 (19:35):
Everyone in the newsroom was gathered around us. It was
very surreal because ultimately, this is a story about sexual
assault and sexual abuse, and it's very head spinning to
be celebrating the revelation of that and reporting around that.
Speaker 15 (19:54):
Reporter Matt Hamilton, I recognized that it was bigger than
us as well, validation of what the newspaper had done,
of what a team of people editors, reporters, researchers, copy editors, photographers.
Speaker 16 (20:10):
It's a validation of that collaboration. I was able to
see our work differently and the commulative effect of these
incremental stories and the commulative effect of just stay in
and day out reporting on the university and doctor Tindall
for by that point years. I felt proud and really
(20:31):
glad to be with Paul and Harriet.
Speaker 10 (20:33):
There thinking about all the doors we knocked on, and
particular people who could have turned us away, who maybe
the smart thing was to turn us away, but had
led us into their homes and had told us the truth,
and they did so at a risked to their jobs.
And I guess it's just sort of amazed.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
At them, Reporter Harriet Ryan. The thing that the.
Speaker 10 (20:55):
Tindall case is that the victims were the patients, But
often the patients didn't realize what had happened to them,
how bad it was, and they didn't realize that it
happened to hundreds of or thousands.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Of other people.
Speaker 10 (21:08):
But the people that worked in the clinic who had
to witness it, they knew it every day, several times
a day, and they were their own kind of victims.
So I was thinking about those people, and I just
it was very emotional.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I believe that Pulletzer also belongs to our colleagues Sarah
Parvini and Adam il Marik, in recognition of their great
work on the Polia Fido investigation, the story that led
us to Tindall.
Speaker 17 (21:31):
So many more pieces of thread were coming loose after
that initial.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Investigation, Reporter Sarah Parvini.
Speaker 17 (21:39):
And eventually there's the investigation that Paul and Matt and
Harriet got a Pulitzer for. Learned that investigations beget investigations.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
In July twenty twenty two, McMillan published my book Bad City,
Peril and Power in the City of Angels. It tells
the untold stories behind the story of Puliafido and Tyndall,
as well as what happened at my own newspaper seven
months before it was published. As I got close to
finishing the manuscript, I gave all three former La Times
(22:14):
editors an opportunity to respond to my reporting for the book.
They turned me down and instead hired lawyers and threatened lawsuits.
I had no doubt that they'd hoped to stop publication
of Bad City, or at minimum since to the portions
of the book that were critical of them. I found
it extraordinary that they would engage in what I saw
as their own personal pursuit of journalistic prior restraint two
(22:38):
words that to find the mortal enemy of the First Amendment.
Nothing those editors or their lawyers have claimed has refuted
anything in Bad City. The same is true for the
attacks the editors leveled on the book me and my
colleagues after publication. Dave On Maharaj, Mark Duvison and Matt
Doug continued to deny that they did anything wrong in
(22:59):
their handling of the USC investigation, and as for Carmen, Puliafido,
and Max Nichias, they never granted me an interview under
any circumstances. The La Times newsroom is seeing other big
(23:19):
changes since we first started reporting on Pulliofido. In February
twenty eighteen, the billionaire biotech entrepreneur doctor Patrick soon Shown
announced that he was buying the La Times from Trunk.
Patrick and his wife Michelle saved the paper from certain
death as a first rate news organization.
Speaker 18 (23:39):
Patrick Sounshan kind of swoops in as this savior for
the papers.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
That's Joe Pompeo, media correspondent for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 18 (23:48):
For all intents and purposes, seems like what a lot
of struggled news organizations wish for, which is a very
rich individual who can kind of come in reset the
place and take some losses because they have a lot
of money to do that, but also has ambition to
make this a real business.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Harriet and reporter Adam Almarik felt the same way.
Speaker 10 (24:11):
I feel like it's a little bit of a fairy
tale in some ways, like forcing out the bad management
and then forming a union and then getting a billionaire
to buy the paper, a billionaire who is like a
benevolent figure who's invested lots and lots of funny in us.
I feel really lucky to work at the La.
Speaker 19 (24:29):
Times and stay at night as far as the atmosphere
of the newsra the kind of newspaper that we are. Look,
there's nobody's perfect. No ownership is a perfect situation. That's
just that's just life, right. But you know, at least
now I have not once felt like we're doing something
for the wrong reasons or we don't have the right
(24:52):
mission in mind.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Doctor soon shown went on a hiring spree, adding about
one hundred and fifty journalists to the newsroom. But since
the cost of supporting journalism has only gotten steeper. All
across the media industry, we've seen significant layoffs and other cuts,
including at The Times, where annual losses were in the
tens of millions of dollars. Here's Joe Pompeo again.
Speaker 18 (25:15):
This current season of layoffs and contraction industry, I think
definitely felt to some people like the worst it's been
since this was happening back in two thousand and eight
with the crash and the recession, when things really started
to nose dive in the media industry and hundreds and
hundreds of journalists put out of work, relatively few jobs available,
(25:38):
and probably more people than ever trying to apply for
those jobs.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
It does feel like a.
Speaker 18 (25:44):
Moment where if you ever were going to consider finding
a more lucrat field to be in, this might be
the thing that pushes you over the edge.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Even with the layoffs, the Times remains by far the
largest news operation this side of the Potomac, and the
soon Shown family says it remained committed to the paper,
which is one five more bulletzers since Tindall. So I
find there is still much to be hopeful about, especially
when it comes to investigative journalism.
Speaker 18 (26:09):
Often those types of big swing investigations that end up
resulting in a five thousand word expose a that's not
just something that is holding the powerful to account or
exposing wrongdoing. It's also generally those types of stories which
are generating the most interest among readers and therefore also
(26:30):
tend to be the ones that make people want to
subscribe to a place like the La Times. So I
don't think that investigative journalism is necessarily the first obvious
thing to go, even though it is kind of one
of the more expensive things to sustain.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
In a newsroom.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Harriet shares my view, I'm.
Speaker 10 (26:45):
Feeling depressed about journalism but the thing about investigative journalism.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Is it's supposed to.
Speaker 10 (26:52):
Tell people something that they don't know and they actually
can't find online. It can't be replaced by AI. That's
the whole point of investigative journalism. So I feel like
it's very powerful still, and maybe it would be like
one of the last things standing in journalism would be
investigative journalism.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
In so many cases, investigative journalism does not happen without
brave people like the warrants, the folks who often risk
everything just to get the truth out. Of course, the
risk is even greater when they speak the truth on
the record in clear public view, knowing there could be
a terrible price to pay. Sarah and Charles Warren did that,
(27:32):
and their courage set in motion a series of events
that brought down powerful people who needed to be brought down.
Of all the names you've heard in this story, I
hope theirs are the ones you remember again. I'm Paul Pringle.
Thanks for listening to Fallen Angels, the story of California corruption.
(27:54):
I'm still an investigative reporter for The Times, and I
hope you continue to support local journalism in LA and elsewhere.
Fallen Angels The Story of California Corruption is a production
of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios. I'm
(28:16):
Paul Pringle. This show is based on my book Bad City,
Peril and Power in the City of Angels. Fallen Angels
was written by Isabel Evans, Adam Pinkas, and Brent Katz.
Isabel Evans is our producer. Brent Katz is co producer.
Associate producers are Hannah Leebowitz Lockhart and On Pajo Locke.
(28:37):
Executive producers are Me, Paul Pringle, Joe Picarello, and Adam
Pinkas for Best Case Studios. Original music is by James Newberry.
This episode was edited by Max Michael Miller, with assistants
from Nisha Venkat, Additional editings, Hound design and additional music
by Dean White, Harriet, Ryan, Matt Hamilton, Sarah Parvini and
(28:58):
Adam Almarik are consulted in producers. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Carl Catle. Follow and rate Fallen Angels
wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Paul Pringle
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