April 25, 2024 • 28 mins
The team tracks down the family of Sarah Warren, who have been desperate to get Puliafito out of their daughter’s life for years. The reporters discover that Puliafito’s control over vulnerable people struggling with drug addiction is far greater than they imagined. And Sarah is not the only young person to have come under his spell.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's been a while since since you've seen a good.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Old fashion doing drugs video, so we saw brand.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
That video was recorded at Sarah Warren's apartment. It shows Sarah,
a twenty one year old, doing meth and other drugs
with a much older man. Considering what he's into. You
might be surprised to learn what this man does for
a living. He's the dean of the medical school at USC.
(00:33):
You Christian. For months, I've been fighting to get into
the paper my story about the dean of the USC
Medical School, Carmen Puliafido. Then I get my hands on
some of the videos he and Sarah Warren had been making.
They come from a source I didn't expect. My name
(00:55):
is Paul Pringle. I'm an investigative reporter for the La Times,
and this is Fallen Angels, Episode five, The Warren Family.
I first went to see the Warrens in March of
twenty seventeen. Matt Hamilton, another Times reporter, came with me
(01:18):
to their house in Orange County. Matt's part of the
secret reporting team I'd put together with my editor. But
when we get to their place in Huntington Beach, the
only person home is Sarah's teenage brother, Charles. We ask
about Puviafido and his sister, and the kid pulls up
his shirt sleeve to show us a tattoo. It says,
(01:39):
no snitches.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And this is like the punk younger brother who's trying to.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Act tough reporter Matt Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's another to work closed on us. I think that
is when Paul made the decision. He drove down to
Paul Warren's office in Long Beach and maybe introduction, which
was risky because if you're door knocking someone to go
to their workplace is like extremely low chances of success.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I don't like the idea of showing up at Paul
Warren's work, but Sarah's in rehab and Charles isn't talking,
so at this point Paul's all we got. He works
at a logistics company in downtown Long Beach. There's a
garden the lobby. I don't tell him who I am.
I just asked him if he can direct me to
Paul's office. He won't, but he phones Paul to say
(02:35):
I'm there. A couple minutes later, Sarah Warren's father appears.
He's in his fifties, medium Bill brown hair. I tell
him I'm a reporter for the La Times, and immediately
his face falls like he knew this day would come.
He leads me to a private area where we can talk.
(02:58):
I asked him if i'll answer a few questions confidentially.
With some reluctance, he agrees. Paul tells me that he
and his wife have been trying to get Pulliafido out
of Sarah's life for two years. He says, Carmen thinks
Sarah's his girlfriend, and the Warrens are desperate for her
rehab to work. That's all he'll say for now. I
(03:21):
give him my card and ask if we can speak again.
He says he'll think about it. Even if we can't
get Sarah or her parents. The reporting team has enough
for a story, so it's time to poke USC president
Max Dechias again, give him one last chance to comment.
(03:43):
We decided to send Matt Hamilton and Sarah Parvini to
follow up in person.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Paula basically tasks us with one of the most difficult parts,
which is confronting an administrator at USC who doesn't want
to be confronted.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Matt and I are both USC alums, both products of
the journalism School of USC, and it seemed fitting for
the two of us to be the people to go
back on campus and to sit in that office and
hope for an interview with Nikias.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
We kno f in the president's dore and go in,
and we had not realized that the USC President's office
was really a series of offices. There was clearly an
inner sanctum, and then an outer sank them, and then
even further outer sank them.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There was a person at the front desk.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
We told them who we were, or two reporters from
the La Times.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We're working on a story.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
We'd like to speak with President Kias.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
And we sat there and waited, but of course we
were turned away.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
We were both a little crestfallen that we didn't get
to lay eyes on the president. Really that what was
like the height of Max and Kius's power because us
he was just raking in over a billion a year.
The money was arriving so fast, and he didn't have
time for two dollar Times reporters.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I also emailed the Kias's office for a response, and
I attached the nine to one one recording from the
hotel continence. Remembering what his office said in that letter,
to Davon, I ad a ps quote. I have never
followed you on Instagram and I have no interest in
your travel schedule. I know going to the Kias could
(05:38):
easily meet another complaint from his office, and the top
editors at the Times, Davon and Mark are not going
to like it. And on Monday, the reporting team here
is from one of our editors, shall be grad we.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Got an email saying to the effect of, Okay, the
team's done, good work, carry on with your other assignments
and stories. I do remember a sense of Shelby being
leaned on to have the team do other things.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Matt Late, our editor on the story, tells me Davon
has apparently found out about the reporting team and now
he's pressuring Shelby to take everyone off the project. It
seems maybe Nikias did complain again.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I remember calling Paul and other team members after receiving
that email, and it was like, disregard the email. Just
keep doing what you're doing. I know it saysn't in writing,
but the real mandate is to keep going. The five
of us were able to do significant headway and gell
(06:39):
as a team, and it made it almost impossible for
it to be disbanded by that point, and it was
kind of a brilliant tactical move by mid level editors
to put like five people of varied abilities, skill, experience,
age onto a team. It's like a broad constituency kind
(06:59):
of gave it and impossible to kill arrangement.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
There was a lot of contempt for the leadership of
the paper.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
We found them ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Harriet Ryan had been through this kind of thing with
her investigation into Purdue Pharma, and she isn't about to
let this story suffer the same fate.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
It was about journalism. There was something about the purity
of the journalism afflict, the comfortable and comfort they afflicted.
It was why we were all in this field. It
was why we got up every morning and like went
to this building and made less money than we could
of and dealt with the fact that we could be
laid off at any minute. We all did it for
this belief in this thing.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Shelby sends another email to the team saying again that
we need to stand down. We ignore it, so we're
not a secret reporting team anymore, just an insubordinate one.
I give Paul Warren a few days to get in touch,
(08:01):
but he doesn't. Then one morning I get a call
from his wife, mary Anne Warren, Sarah's mother. She won't
go on the record, at least not yet, but she
agrees to talk. I don't tell mary Anne that have
already spoken to her husband and said she doesn't bring
it up. I assume he hasn't told her either. I
have to maintain Paul's confidentiality, even from his wife. We
(08:24):
arranged to meet at the Hilton in Huntington Beach. I
first see mary Anne in the hotel lounge. She's tanlonde
and looks a lot like her daughter. She says her
husband doesn't know that she's meeting with me, and neither
does Sarah. We find a quiet table at the back
(08:45):
and she starts to tell me what Carmen Pullioffido has
done to her family. The Warrens first learned about Pulliafido
when Sarah ran away from home. She had always been
in and had run away before, but this time was different.
They didn't hear from her for months, so mary Anne
(09:06):
was relieved when she got a Facebook message from one
of Sarah's friends.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
He called and said, your daughter is mixed up with
these mad men.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Now, the Lawrens would end up signing a non disclosure
agreement with USC and we'll get to that. They can't
tell their whole story, But Mari Anne did go on
the record. These excerpts are from a transcript read by
an actor through Facebook.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
When Sarah went missing and Carmen had the first apartment
for her, I said, bring her to me. I didn't
care who he was.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
To me.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
He was like a guardian angel because I hadn't seen
my daughter in a couple of months.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Sarah came home, but she wasn't the same. She had
struggled with her drinking and dabbled with drugs before, but
now she was addicted to meth and she claimed that
this sixty four year old doctor was her boyfriend. It
was the start of a terrible cycle.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
She oh deed with this guy like four or five times.
Pasadena Sheriffs had to have a suicide squad at her apartment.
Of course, no trace of any police reports.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
No police reports. Just like after the hotel constance, the
Warrens got Sarah into rehab again and leaned on pull
your feeto to help pay for it. But even though
he's willing to spend money on your treatment, he's still
part of the problem.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
Sarah says that he snuck drugs in all the candy
that he would send her in rehab, and that's why
she never got better.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
She was in three rehab facilities. She was kicked out
of one of them because Puliafido smuggled Santax bars to her.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Reporter Matt Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
The first day of her rehabit, she went out to
the car and he would give her sann Axe handle
the bag.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And on the second.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Day Fiet brought her meth by putting it in a
sunglass case on the road outside the facility, and so
she was kicked out after they found out she was high.
At the second rehab Facilita was discharged but relapsed on
the ride home with Pulliafido because he gave her meth
and alcohol on the ride home. Monarch sure Is I
(11:22):
believe was the third. He would mail her zanaxs Skittles
bags and he called it Skittles surgery.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Now knowing what Pulliafido was capable of, the warrems have
put Sarah into a rehab where he can't get to her.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Where she is now, they don't let any men in,
you know, So it drove him wild. I had to
kind of keep him at bay so he wouldn't go
there searching for her, saying, oh no, this rehabs like
a convent. They don't let anyone in.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Carmen.
Speaker 7 (11:52):
I hardly get to speak to her myself.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
They consulted a private investigator who told him not to
shut out Puliofido since they don't know what he maan
I do.
Speaker 7 (12:00):
I have kept in contact with Carmen while Sarah's been
in rehab. When we first found out all this was
going on, who he was, I was advised that we
keep our enemy close to us, my husband and I.
So we've been in constant contact with Carmen, like every
two or three weeks.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And Marianne tells me something else. Sarah is not the
only one in her family who's fallen under his spell.
Pouliofido also has his hooks into her teenage son, Charles.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Puliofido had given him meth twenty five to fifty bars
of sanax.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
By the way, bars is just another term for pills.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Polifido and his sister they were both smoking meth. This
was in her Pasadena apartment. They offered it to him
and he accepted and he was only seventeen years old
at the time. He's someone who was going over to
his sister's apartment and invited to partake, but.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Charles has been trying to get free of Pulliffido. He
hates how the dean controls Sarah with drugs, keeps her
away from her friends and family. Mary Anne also tells
me that Sarah had once called Charles afraid for her life.
Pulliafido had seen her with another man and it burst
into her apartment in a jealous rage. When Charles rushed over,
(13:20):
he found his sister screaming because Pulliofido had been using
a steam iron on her clothes while she was wearing them.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
He fought with Pullioffido to defend his sister. He beat Pulloffido,
hurt his knee.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Charles warned Pulliafido to stay away from Sarah, and he
threatened to kill him, but Pulliafido wouldn't leave her alone.
At the end of our meeting, mary Anne confirms what
we've heard from the drug dealer Kyle Void. Mary Anne
had looked through Sarah's laptop and found hundreds of photos
and videos of Pulliafido and Sarah doing drugs. And having sex.
(13:59):
I know that if we can get our hands on
this evidence, David and Mark will have to publish the story.
So I asked Marianna if she'll share the files with me.
She tells me she'll think about it. Back in the newsroom,
I update the team. Every one of them is struck
by some different terrible detail. Adam Ilmark.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
He was providing drugs to people Sarah's brother included, who
was a minor. And you know, this is a really
damning critical detail, Sarah Parvini.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Here's a young woman who you know is struggling not
only with substance issues, but also this imbalance of power.
She wasn't too far an age for me. It's hard
to turn away from something like that.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Matt Hamilton, what she was describing was multipole, deliberate efforts
to even when she is at a facility to try
to break her addiction, he is enabling it. That to
me was outrageous. This is just someone who's simultaneously entrusted
with shepherding the education of people of the same age,
(15:10):
and it just he's a doctor.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Mary Anne Warren is worried that if she hands over
the photos and videos of Pullia Fido and her daughter
Sarah will feel betrayed, and Pulliafido might come after the family.
So I suggest a compromise. The Times can describe the
images in the article, but not publish them. She's reassured
to some extent. She says she'll look for a good
example to send me. I wait, I follow up, I
(15:39):
wait some more, and finally I get a text from
her with a screenshot from one of the videos. It's
an image I'm not likely to forget.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It was like a photo of Puliafido with a pipe.
You just see him hovering over this pipe and there
was like white smoke. I remember thinking, okay, that's not
about a school dean. It just was so different from
this man that you saw on the US website or
images of some charity function.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It was just like, okay, wow. Mary Anne sends six
more photos, all showing Puliafidos smoking meth. We have more
than enough. It's time to write the story and get
it out there. Harriet Ryan tackles the first draft.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Carmen Pullifedo, the dean of US's Tech Medical School, arrived
at the Galla fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshore Hotel a
year and a half ago, with the confidence of a
man totally in his elements, he moved through the crowd
of celebrities like Pierce Brosen and Don Henley and wealthy
school donors like Dana and David Dornsite, shaking hands and
posing for photos, and delivering the message that had become
(16:47):
a refrain in his eight years in office, USC was
climbing into the ranks of the country's most elite research institutions.
In the less refined setting of the Van Nuys Courthouse.
A few days earlier, a convicted methamphetamine a heroin dealer
named Kyle Voy was told to write his contact information
on court form. The address he scrawled was a sprawling,
(17:07):
five million dollar mansion in one of Pasadena's Tonius neighborhoods,
Pullifido's residence.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The next day, Mary Anne calls to tell me that
she's just heard from Pulliofido. He's invited her to lunch.
Mary Anne Warren tells me that Pulli Affido says he
wants to talk to her about Sarah and the La Times,
(17:36):
and though it doesn't make a lot of sense, he's worried.
Pulliafido somehow knows he's been talking to me, but this
lunch with Pulliofido is a chance to get him to
talk about his relationship with Sarah and what he knows
about our investigation. In a perfect world, should record the
whole thing, but in the state of California, you need
(17:57):
permission to record a private conversation, so that's out. But
a reporter might be able to overhear them, heavesdrop and
take notes. We wouldn't be able to quote the conversation
because mary Anne wants to remain anonymous, but it would
be a major help for our reporting and give us
the backup we need. So we decide someone needs to
(18:19):
go undercover. But who would it be? Clearly not me,
we decide on Sarah Parvini and Adam il Marik.
Speaker 8 (18:28):
Paul had tried to reach Balafido numerous times by then,
and so that would have just been too obvious, and
so we figured he's not going to recognize us, and
we could pull this off.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Kind of felt like this good old fashioned kind of
journalism of you know, following the quote unquote bad guy
and getting the information that you need.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
We look for a restaurant that's big enough for multiple
tables to be available and a time eleven thirty am
when a nearby table might be empty. We land on
a place called the Blue Gold, a cavernous steak and
seafood restaurant in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I remember, you know, driving down to this mall where
the restaurant was and meeting up with Adam, meeting up
with Paul, having a huddle before walking in.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Mary Am will go in first after pull thea Fido arrives,
Sarah and Adam will try to sit at the next table.
They'll look like any California couple. But if pull the
Afido senses something's off and confronts them, they'll have to
admit their journalists for the la times. Those are the rules.
I'll be waiting in the car as they text me updates.
(19:43):
Fifteen minutes go by, then finally he shows up.
Speaker 8 (19:51):
We actually waited outside for him to walk in, and
then we kind of followed in a couple minutes later
and sat at the table next to the It was,
you know, a nice kind of a bit of scale
kind of a restaurant, had kind of a Mediterranean menu.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Adam and I ordered chuck schuka, which was funny for
us because we're about Middle Eastern and we just sat
there and we listened.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
He seemed kind of disheveled. This is a superstar medical
school dean, you know, and he did not come across
that way. He started to hear. You know, mary Anne
just kind of really peppering him with questions and really
trying to nail him down on certain things, like the
fact that he was providing Sarah with drugs. I think
(20:42):
he paused for a second and he said, I gave
her the money for it, but he wouldn't actually admit
to furnishing the drugs themselves. You know. He gave his
story of how he believed he was the hero in
all of this. He was trying to rescue Sarah.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We were texting the team and like a group text
updates about what we were hearing, and then also simultaneously
taking notes he.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
Was giving her money for drugs. At the very least,
they had a long term kind of arrangement.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Picking up on tone, picking up on sort of intention,
you get the vibe of this person, of this relationship,
of the sort of trying to cover his tracks, try
to sort of smooth things over. Even that in and
of itself, if we couldn't quote from any of the conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It told us so much.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Mary Anne presses Pull Your Fido about the incident at
the hotel constance. She says, when you see someone passed out,
you call nine to one one. Pull Your Fido responds,
I'm glad I did what I did. I didn't try
to make a big deal out of it. When Marianne
confronts him about delivering drugs to Sarah in rehab, he
doesn't deny it. He even admits that at least two
other people have been kicked out of rehab because of
(22:06):
his drug deliveries.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
There was this almost boastful quality to when Puliafido was
speaking with Mary Anne about the things that he had done,
when she would kind of try to pull it out
of him, like, oh, and do you remember when this happened,
and he would just sort of step right into it
and almost be proud.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Pullia Fido tells Mary Anne that the La Times is
after him. Never talk to them, he warns her, and
then he asks, are you sure you aren't talking to them?
Cool as can be, Mary Anne says, why would I
throw my daughter under the bus. The day after her
lunch with Puliafido, mary Anne calls me. She's decided to
(22:51):
show me the rest of the photos and videos on
Sarah's laptop and phone, and she's finally told her husband
Paul that she's been talking to me, only to find
out that he's doctor b two. Late the next day, Sarah,
Parvini and I had down to Huntingdon Beach to meet
the Warrens, both of them together.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It was late when we drove down together, Paul and
I in the same car.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Marianne has booked a conference room at the Hiatt for
us to meet in along with the family therapist. We
just want to do what's right, she says. The meeting
is off the record. On the conference table, there's a
laptop and a hard drive.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It was like this long table where we basically got
these little drives with the information on them.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The Warrens agree that we can take the laptop, but
we can't publish what's on it. Back in the newsroom, Sarah,
Adam and Matt begins scrolling through dozens of videos and photos.
There's a video date stamped the night before Sarah's overdose
of her and Puliafido in the room at the hotel Constance.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I remember just having to literally Google, like, what is
a hot reil? What does this mean? It's a method
of taking a methemphetamine where you heat it up and
then you inhale it through your nose. It's like one
of the most dangerous ways that you can do meth.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
In another video, Pulia, Fido and Sarah shotgun some myth.
She calls him Tony. In another Fido tells Sarah he's
working on getting more ecstasy, and Sarah tells him she
had been arrested just the night before. I'm working on
(24:44):
the X. Yeah, I know, think in jail.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh, by the way, I went to jail last night.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Tell you about that story. And then there's the ecstasy video.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
He is like in a tux dressed very nicely, and
it's in this vertically kind of shot like selfie style video,
and you know, he sticks his tongue out and there's
there's a tab on there and he says, you know,
the ball, I'm going to do some ecstasy before the ball.
(25:17):
In the other footage that we had, we could tell
that he was doing various drugs, but he's not sitting
there talking about doing the drugs. There is something particularly
striking about someone of their own admissions, saying this is
what I'm doing. It essentially wraps it up in a
(25:41):
bow for you.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Needless to say, we're stunned by what we see. And
then two days later I get another phone call Sarah
Warren is ready to talk. Davon Maharaj and Mark Duvison
deny that they did anything wrong in their handling of
the USC investigation, and they maintained that any negative betrayal
(26:09):
of their actions is false. Next time, on Fallen Angels,
he was late.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
To seeing a patient because he was getting high.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I finally speak to the young woman at the center
of the story.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think the police found the drugs, Well, they just
found the meth because Carmen, I guess, was able to
hide the heroine. Then right before I overdosed, he was
like trying to have sex with me, and then I
think I just like passed out. I knew he had
to get out of my life.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
But even with our main witness on the record, we
face a battle to get the story out there.
Speaker 8 (26:43):
Said cutting the whistleblowers as unethical, and I don't. I
can't stand by it.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
When I think about the class on Marx Walls, I
just pictures just pulsating with the rage and frustration in
that room.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
That's next time on Fallen Angels. Fallen Angels The Story
of California Corruption is a production of iHeart Podcasts in
partnership with Best Case Studios. I'm Paul Pringle. This show
(27:16):
is based on my book Bad City, Peril and Power
in the City of Angels. Fallen Angels was written by
Isabel Evans, Adam Pinkus, and Brent Katz. Isabel Evans is
our producer. Brent Katz is co producer. Associate producers are
Hanna Leebowitz Lockhart and On Pajo Locke. Executive producers are Me,
(27:37):
Paul Pringle, Joe Picarello, and Adam Pinkus 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. Mary Ann
Warren's transcript is read by Jennifer Morris. Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton,
(27:59):
Sarah Parvin and Adam Almarik are consulting producers. Our iHeart
team is Ali Perry and Carl Catle. Follow and rate
Fallen Angels. Wherever you get your podcasts,
It's been a while since since you've seen a good.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Old fashion doing drugs video, so we saw brand.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
That video was recorded at Sarah Warren's apartment. It shows Sarah,
a twenty one year old, doing meth and other drugs
with a much older man. Considering what he's into. You
might be surprised to learn what this man does for
a living. He's the dean of the medical school at USC.
(00:33):
You Christian. For months, I've been fighting to get into
the paper my story about the dean of the USC
Medical School, Carmen Puliafido. Then I get my hands on
some of the videos he and Sarah Warren had been making.
They come from a source I didn't expect. My name
(00:55):
is Paul Pringle. I'm an investigative reporter for the La Times,
and this is Fallen Angels, Episode five, The Warren Family.
I first went to see the Warrens in March of
twenty seventeen. Matt Hamilton, another Times reporter, came with me
(01:18):
to their house in Orange County. Matt's part of the
secret reporting team I'd put together with my editor. But
when we get to their place in Huntington Beach, the
only person home is Sarah's teenage brother, Charles. We ask
about Puviafido and his sister, and the kid pulls up
his shirt sleeve to show us a tattoo. It says,
(01:39):
no snitches.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And this is like the punk younger brother who's trying to.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Act tough reporter Matt Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's another to work closed on us. I think that
is when Paul made the decision. He drove down to
Paul Warren's office in Long Beach and maybe introduction, which
was risky because if you're door knocking someone to go
to their workplace is like extremely low chances of success.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I don't like the idea of showing up at Paul
Warren's work, but Sarah's in rehab and Charles isn't talking,
so at this point Paul's all we got. He works
at a logistics company in downtown Long Beach. There's a
garden the lobby. I don't tell him who I am.
I just asked him if he can direct me to
Paul's office. He won't, but he phones Paul to say
(02:35):
I'm there. A couple minutes later, Sarah Warren's father appears.
He's in his fifties, medium Bill brown hair. I tell
him I'm a reporter for the La Times, and immediately
his face falls like he knew this day would come.
He leads me to a private area where we can talk.
(02:58):
I asked him if i'll answer a few questions confidentially.
With some reluctance, he agrees. Paul tells me that he
and his wife have been trying to get Pulliafido out
of Sarah's life for two years. He says, Carmen thinks
Sarah's his girlfriend, and the Warrens are desperate for her
rehab to work. That's all he'll say for now. I
(03:21):
give him my card and ask if we can speak again.
He says he'll think about it. Even if we can't
get Sarah or her parents. The reporting team has enough
for a story, so it's time to poke USC president
Max Dechias again, give him one last chance to comment.
(03:43):
We decided to send Matt Hamilton and Sarah Parvini to
follow up in person.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Paula basically tasks us with one of the most difficult parts,
which is confronting an administrator at USC who doesn't want
to be confronted.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Matt and I are both USC alums, both products of
the journalism School of USC, and it seemed fitting for
the two of us to be the people to go
back on campus and to sit in that office and
hope for an interview with Nikias.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
We kno f in the president's dore and go in,
and we had not realized that the USC President's office
was really a series of offices. There was clearly an
inner sanctum, and then an outer sank them, and then
even further outer sank them.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
There was a person at the front desk.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
We told them who we were, or two reporters from
the La Times.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We're working on a story.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
We'd like to speak with President Kias.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
And we sat there and waited, but of course we
were turned away.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
We were both a little crestfallen that we didn't get
to lay eyes on the president. Really that what was
like the height of Max and Kius's power because us
he was just raking in over a billion a year.
The money was arriving so fast, and he didn't have
time for two dollar Times reporters.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I also emailed the Kias's office for a response, and
I attached the nine to one one recording from the
hotel continence. Remembering what his office said in that letter,
to Davon, I ad a ps quote. I have never
followed you on Instagram and I have no interest in
your travel schedule. I know going to the Kias could
(05:38):
easily meet another complaint from his office, and the top
editors at the Times, Davon and Mark are not going
to like it. And on Monday, the reporting team here
is from one of our editors, shall be grad we.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Got an email saying to the effect of, Okay, the
team's done, good work, carry on with your other assignments
and stories. I do remember a sense of Shelby being
leaned on to have the team do other things.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Matt Late, our editor on the story, tells me Davon
has apparently found out about the reporting team and now
he's pressuring Shelby to take everyone off the project. It
seems maybe Nikias did complain again.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
I remember calling Paul and other team members after receiving
that email, and it was like, disregard the email. Just
keep doing what you're doing. I know it saysn't in writing,
but the real mandate is to keep going. The five
of us were able to do significant headway and gell
(06:39):
as a team, and it made it almost impossible for
it to be disbanded by that point, and it was
kind of a brilliant tactical move by mid level editors
to put like five people of varied abilities, skill, experience,
age onto a team. It's like a broad constituency kind
(06:59):
of gave it and impossible to kill arrangement.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
There was a lot of contempt for the leadership of
the paper.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
We found them ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Harriet Ryan had been through this kind of thing with
her investigation into Purdue Pharma, and she isn't about to
let this story suffer the same fate.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
It was about journalism. There was something about the purity
of the journalism afflict, the comfortable and comfort they afflicted.
It was why we were all in this field. It
was why we got up every morning and like went
to this building and made less money than we could
of and dealt with the fact that we could be
laid off at any minute. We all did it for
this belief in this thing.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Shelby sends another email to the team saying again that
we need to stand down. We ignore it, so we're
not a secret reporting team anymore, just an insubordinate one.
I give Paul Warren a few days to get in touch,
(08:01):
but he doesn't. Then one morning I get a call
from his wife, mary Anne Warren, Sarah's mother. She won't
go on the record, at least not yet, but she
agrees to talk. I don't tell mary Anne that have
already spoken to her husband and said she doesn't bring
it up. I assume he hasn't told her either. I
have to maintain Paul's confidentiality, even from his wife. We
(08:24):
arranged to meet at the Hilton in Huntington Beach. I
first see mary Anne in the hotel lounge. She's tanlonde
and looks a lot like her daughter. She says her
husband doesn't know that she's meeting with me, and neither
does Sarah. We find a quiet table at the back
(08:45):
and she starts to tell me what Carmen Pullioffido has
done to her family. The Warrens first learned about Pulliafido
when Sarah ran away from home. She had always been
in and had run away before, but this time was different.
They didn't hear from her for months, so mary Anne
(09:06):
was relieved when she got a Facebook message from one
of Sarah's friends.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
He called and said, your daughter is mixed up with
these mad men.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Now, the Lawrens would end up signing a non disclosure
agreement with USC and we'll get to that. They can't
tell their whole story, But Mari Anne did go on
the record. These excerpts are from a transcript read by
an actor through Facebook.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
When Sarah went missing and Carmen had the first apartment
for her, I said, bring her to me. I didn't
care who he was.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
To me.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
He was like a guardian angel because I hadn't seen
my daughter in a couple of months.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Sarah came home, but she wasn't the same. She had
struggled with her drinking and dabbled with drugs before, but
now she was addicted to meth and she claimed that
this sixty four year old doctor was her boyfriend. It
was the start of a terrible cycle.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
She oh deed with this guy like four or five times.
Pasadena Sheriffs had to have a suicide squad at her apartment.
Of course, no trace of any police reports.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
No police reports. Just like after the hotel constance, the
Warrens got Sarah into rehab again and leaned on pull
your feeto to help pay for it. But even though
he's willing to spend money on your treatment, he's still
part of the problem.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
Sarah says that he snuck drugs in all the candy
that he would send her in rehab, and that's why
she never got better.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
She was in three rehab facilities. She was kicked out
of one of them because Puliafido smuggled Santax bars to her.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Reporter Matt Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
The first day of her rehabit, she went out to
the car and he would give her sann Axe handle
the bag.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And on the second.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Day Fiet brought her meth by putting it in a
sunglass case on the road outside the facility, and so
she was kicked out after they found out she was high.
At the second rehab Facilita was discharged but relapsed on
the ride home with Pulliafido because he gave her meth
and alcohol on the ride home. Monarch sure Is I
(11:22):
believe was the third. He would mail her zanaxs Skittles
bags and he called it Skittles surgery.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Now knowing what Pulliafido was capable of, the warrems have
put Sarah into a rehab where he can't get to her.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Where she is now, they don't let any men in,
you know, So it drove him wild. I had to
kind of keep him at bay so he wouldn't go
there searching for her, saying, oh no, this rehabs like
a convent. They don't let anyone in.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Carmen.
Speaker 7 (11:52):
I hardly get to speak to her myself.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
They consulted a private investigator who told him not to
shut out Puliofido since they don't know what he maan
I do.
Speaker 7 (12:00):
I have kept in contact with Carmen while Sarah's been
in rehab. When we first found out all this was
going on, who he was, I was advised that we
keep our enemy close to us, my husband and I.
So we've been in constant contact with Carmen, like every
two or three weeks.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
And Marianne tells me something else. Sarah is not the
only one in her family who's fallen under his spell.
Pouliofido also has his hooks into her teenage son, Charles.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Puliofido had given him meth twenty five to fifty bars
of sanax.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
By the way, bars is just another term for pills.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Polifido and his sister they were both smoking meth. This
was in her Pasadena apartment. They offered it to him
and he accepted and he was only seventeen years old
at the time. He's someone who was going over to
his sister's apartment and invited to partake, but.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Charles has been trying to get free of Pulliffido. He
hates how the dean controls Sarah with drugs, keeps her
away from her friends and family. Mary Anne also tells
me that Sarah had once called Charles afraid for her life.
Pulliafido had seen her with another man and it burst
into her apartment in a jealous rage. When Charles rushed over,
(13:20):
he found his sister screaming because Pulliofido had been using
a steam iron on her clothes while she was wearing them.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
He fought with Pullioffido to defend his sister. He beat Pulloffido,
hurt his knee.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Charles warned Pulliafido to stay away from Sarah, and he
threatened to kill him, but Pulliafido wouldn't leave her alone.
At the end of our meeting, mary Anne confirms what
we've heard from the drug dealer Kyle Void. Mary Anne
had looked through Sarah's laptop and found hundreds of photos
and videos of Pulliafido and Sarah doing drugs. And having sex.
(13:59):
I know that if we can get our hands on
this evidence, David and Mark will have to publish the story.
So I asked Marianna if she'll share the files with me.
She tells me she'll think about it. Back in the newsroom,
I update the team. Every one of them is struck
by some different terrible detail. Adam Ilmark.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
He was providing drugs to people Sarah's brother included, who
was a minor. And you know, this is a really
damning critical detail, Sarah Parvini.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Here's a young woman who you know is struggling not
only with substance issues, but also this imbalance of power.
She wasn't too far an age for me. It's hard
to turn away from something like that.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Matt Hamilton, what she was describing was multipole, deliberate efforts
to even when she is at a facility to try
to break her addiction, he is enabling it. That to
me was outrageous. This is just someone who's simultaneously entrusted
with shepherding the education of people of the same age,
(15:10):
and it just he's a doctor.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Mary Anne Warren is worried that if she hands over
the photos and videos of Pullia Fido and her daughter
Sarah will feel betrayed, and Pulliafido might come after the family.
So I suggest a compromise. The Times can describe the
images in the article, but not publish them. She's reassured
to some extent. She says she'll look for a good
example to send me. I wait, I follow up, I
(15:39):
wait some more, and finally I get a text from
her with a screenshot from one of the videos. It's
an image I'm not likely to forget.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It was like a photo of Puliafido with a pipe.
You just see him hovering over this pipe and there
was like white smoke. I remember thinking, okay, that's not
about a school dean. It just was so different from
this man that you saw on the US website or
images of some charity function.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It was just like, okay, wow. Mary Anne sends six
more photos, all showing Puliafidos smoking meth. We have more
than enough. It's time to write the story and get
it out there. Harriet Ryan tackles the first draft.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
Carmen Pullifedo, the dean of US's Tech Medical School, arrived
at the Galla fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshore Hotel a
year and a half ago, with the confidence of a
man totally in his elements, he moved through the crowd
of celebrities like Pierce Brosen and Don Henley and wealthy
school donors like Dana and David Dornsite, shaking hands and
posing for photos, and delivering the message that had become
(16:47):
a refrain in his eight years in office, USC was
climbing into the ranks of the country's most elite research institutions.
In the less refined setting of the Van Nuys Courthouse.
A few days earlier, a convicted methamphetamine a heroin dealer
named Kyle Voy was told to write his contact information
on court form. The address he scrawled was a sprawling,
(17:07):
five million dollar mansion in one of Pasadena's Tonius neighborhoods,
Pullifido's residence.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The next day, Mary Anne calls to tell me that
she's just heard from Pulliofido. He's invited her to lunch.
Mary Anne Warren tells me that Pulli Affido says he
wants to talk to her about Sarah and the La Times,
(17:36):
and though it doesn't make a lot of sense, he's worried.
Pulliafido somehow knows he's been talking to me, but this
lunch with Pulliofido is a chance to get him to
talk about his relationship with Sarah and what he knows
about our investigation. In a perfect world, should record the
whole thing, but in the state of California, you need
(17:57):
permission to record a private conversation, so that's out. But
a reporter might be able to overhear them, heavesdrop and
take notes. We wouldn't be able to quote the conversation
because mary Anne wants to remain anonymous, but it would
be a major help for our reporting and give us
the backup we need. So we decide someone needs to
(18:19):
go undercover. But who would it be? Clearly not me,
we decide on Sarah Parvini and Adam il Marik.
Speaker 8 (18:28):
Paul had tried to reach Balafido numerous times by then,
and so that would have just been too obvious, and
so we figured he's not going to recognize us, and
we could pull this off.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Kind of felt like this good old fashioned kind of
journalism of you know, following the quote unquote bad guy
and getting the information that you need.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
We look for a restaurant that's big enough for multiple
tables to be available and a time eleven thirty am
when a nearby table might be empty. We land on
a place called the Blue Gold, a cavernous steak and
seafood restaurant in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I remember, you know, driving down to this mall where
the restaurant was and meeting up with Adam, meeting up
with Paul, having a huddle before walking in.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Mary Am will go in first after pull thea Fido arrives,
Sarah and Adam will try to sit at the next table.
They'll look like any California couple. But if pull the
Afido senses something's off and confronts them, they'll have to
admit their journalists for the la times. Those are the rules.
I'll be waiting in the car as they text me updates.
(19:43):
Fifteen minutes go by, then finally he shows up.
Speaker 8 (19:51):
We actually waited outside for him to walk in, and
then we kind of followed in a couple minutes later
and sat at the table next to the It was,
you know, a nice kind of a bit of scale
kind of a restaurant, had kind of a Mediterranean menu.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Adam and I ordered chuck schuka, which was funny for
us because we're about Middle Eastern and we just sat
there and we listened.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
He seemed kind of disheveled. This is a superstar medical
school dean, you know, and he did not come across
that way. He started to hear. You know, mary Anne
just kind of really peppering him with questions and really
trying to nail him down on certain things, like the
fact that he was providing Sarah with drugs. I think
(20:42):
he paused for a second and he said, I gave
her the money for it, but he wouldn't actually admit
to furnishing the drugs themselves. You know. He gave his
story of how he believed he was the hero in
all of this. He was trying to rescue Sarah.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
We were texting the team and like a group text
updates about what we were hearing, and then also simultaneously
taking notes he.
Speaker 8 (21:07):
Was giving her money for drugs. At the very least,
they had a long term kind of arrangement.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Picking up on tone, picking up on sort of intention,
you get the vibe of this person, of this relationship,
of the sort of trying to cover his tracks, try
to sort of smooth things over. Even that in and
of itself, if we couldn't quote from any of the conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It told us so much.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Mary Anne presses Pull Your Fido about the incident at
the hotel constance. She says, when you see someone passed out,
you call nine to one one. Pull Your Fido responds,
I'm glad I did what I did. I didn't try
to make a big deal out of it. When Marianne
confronts him about delivering drugs to Sarah in rehab, he
doesn't deny it. He even admits that at least two
other people have been kicked out of rehab because of
(22:06):
his drug deliveries.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
There was this almost boastful quality to when Puliafido was
speaking with Mary Anne about the things that he had done,
when she would kind of try to pull it out
of him, like, oh, and do you remember when this happened,
and he would just sort of step right into it
and almost be proud.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Pullia Fido tells Mary Anne that the La Times is
after him. Never talk to them, he warns her, and
then he asks, are you sure you aren't talking to them?
Cool as can be, Mary Anne says, why would I
throw my daughter under the bus. The day after her
lunch with Puliafido, mary Anne calls me. She's decided to
(22:51):
show me the rest of the photos and videos on
Sarah's laptop and phone, and she's finally told her husband
Paul that she's been talking to me, only to find
out that he's doctor b two. Late the next day, Sarah,
Parvini and I had down to Huntingdon Beach to meet
the Warrens, both of them together.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It was late when we drove down together, Paul and
I in the same car.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Marianne has booked a conference room at the Hiatt for
us to meet in along with the family therapist. We
just want to do what's right, she says. The meeting
is off the record. On the conference table, there's a
laptop and a hard drive.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It was like this long table where we basically got
these little drives with the information on them.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The Warrens agree that we can take the laptop, but
we can't publish what's on it. Back in the newsroom, Sarah,
Adam and Matt begins scrolling through dozens of videos and photos.
There's a video date stamped the night before Sarah's overdose
of her and Puliafido in the room at the hotel Constance.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I remember just having to literally Google, like, what is
a hot reil? What does this mean? It's a method
of taking a methemphetamine where you heat it up and
then you inhale it through your nose. It's like one
of the most dangerous ways that you can do meth.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
In another video, Pulia, Fido and Sarah shotgun some myth.
She calls him Tony. In another Fido tells Sarah he's
working on getting more ecstasy, and Sarah tells him she
had been arrested just the night before. I'm working on
(24:44):
the X. Yeah, I know, think in jail.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh, by the way, I went to jail last night.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Tell you about that story. And then there's the ecstasy video.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
He is like in a tux dressed very nicely, and
it's in this vertically kind of shot like selfie style video,
and you know, he sticks his tongue out and there's
there's a tab on there and he says, you know,
the ball, I'm going to do some ecstasy before the ball.
(25:17):
In the other footage that we had, we could tell
that he was doing various drugs, but he's not sitting
there talking about doing the drugs. There is something particularly
striking about someone of their own admissions, saying this is
what I'm doing. It essentially wraps it up in a
(25:41):
bow for you.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Needless to say, we're stunned by what we see. And
then two days later I get another phone call Sarah
Warren is ready to talk. Davon Maharaj and Mark Duvison
deny that they did anything wrong in their handling of
the USC investigation, and they maintained that any negative betrayal
(26:09):
of their actions is false. Next time, on Fallen Angels,
he was late.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
To seeing a patient because he was getting high.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I finally speak to the young woman at the center
of the story.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think the police found the drugs, Well, they just
found the meth because Carmen, I guess, was able to
hide the heroine. Then right before I overdosed, he was
like trying to have sex with me, and then I
think I just like passed out. I knew he had
to get out of my life.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
But even with our main witness on the record, we
face a battle to get the story out there.
Speaker 8 (26:43):
Said cutting the whistleblowers as unethical, and I don't. I
can't stand by it.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
When I think about the class on Marx Walls, I
just pictures just pulsating with the rage and frustration in
that room.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
That's next time on Fallen Angels. Fallen Angels The Story
of California Corruption is a production of iHeart Podcasts in
partnership with Best Case Studios. I'm Paul Pringle. This show
(27:16):
is based on my book Bad City, Peril and Power
in the City of Angels. Fallen Angels was written by
Isabel Evans, Adam Pinkus, and Brent Katz. Isabel Evans is
our producer. Brent Katz is co producer. Associate producers are
Hanna Leebowitz Lockhart and On Pajo Locke. Executive producers are Me,
(27:37):
Paul Pringle, Joe Picarello, and Adam Pinkus 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. Mary Ann
Warren's transcript is read by Jennifer Morris. Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton,
(27:59):
Sarah Parvin and Adam Almarik are consulting 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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