Yesterday the Vanguard learned of a California Watch/ Frontline investigation that discovered that a man who had performed potentially hundreds of autopsies for Yolo County had his qualifications to perform autopsies called into question by an investigative report.
The Vanguard spoke on Wednesday with Yolo County’s Chief Deputy Coroner Robert LaBrash, who downplayed any concerns that there were problems with Yolo County autopsies, arguing that any autopsy performed by Dr. Thomas Gill would have been overseen by his office and had his findings signed off upon.
That is where Yolo County enters the picture. The report questions how a person with the record such as Dr. Gill had continued “to do thousands of autopsies and to serve as an expert witness in criminal cases.”
Yolo County Sheriff/ Coroner Ed Prieto appeared on Frontline, which turned out to be the source that informed him of the problems with Dr. Gill.
Sheriff Prieto was asked by Frontline if they do background checks on the forensic pathologists.
“We do a background investigation to make sure for criminal activity,” the Sheriff responded, “We make sure their qualifications are valid.”
However, when Frontline mentioned that Dr. Gill “has serious problems around the United States,” the Sheriff appeared caught completely off guard and responded, “Oh really?”
As Frontline went into Dr. Gill’s history and the problems in Sonoma County that warranted a bar association investigation and condemnation, the Sheriff responded, “I did not know that. I think you alerted me to something –again I always depend on the experts and sometimes the experts don’t always give you the right information. So I think this really has alerted me to look into this a little bit further.”
To his credit, the Sheriff acted quickly on that information. Frontline reported that following that interview, Sheriff Prieto requested that FMG (Forensice Medical Group) no longer send Dr. Gill to Yolo County.
Chief Deputy Coroner Robert LaBrash told the Vanguard, “Once the Sheriff learned about [Dr. Gill through the Frontline Interview], we then acted accordingly which meant severing our involvement with Dr. Gill at that time.”
“We are still involved with FMG (Forensic Medical Group) through a contract and I’m very confident in FMG in terms of what they’ve done for us,” he added.
However, he also expressed confidence that this discovery would not have a major impact on the autopsies that were performed in Yolo County, even those performed by Dr. Gill himself.
“As far as how it impacts Yolo County in terms of the autopsies, I am very very confident in the autopsies that were performed in Yolo County which includes the autopsies that were performed by Dr. Gill.
Mr. LaBrash also expressed confidence in the ability of his staff to spot and correct any potential problems with an autopsy.
He told the Vanguard, “We have looked into each and every death investigation with confidence that the findings that we have are solid and sound.”
One of the key questions here is trying to understand the relationship between the Yolo County Coroner’s Office and a company like FMG that are contracted to perform autopsies. Specifically, what kinds of procedures are in place to prevent situations like what happened in Sonoma from arising elsewhere.
Robert LaBrash told the Vanguard that the coroner’s office has worked with FMG for at least a decade. The coroner’s office itself is charged with investigating any sudden or violent death that occurs in Yolo County.
For any death that requires an autopsy, the county contracts FMG to perform the autopsy and report back on the findings.
The coroner’s office would then review the autopsy and there are a number of layers of oversight in the process.
However, apparently that does not always work, as issues have arisen involving a Sonoma County murder investigation where Dr. Gill improperly performed the autopsy and his findings had numerous holes in them.
As the Vanguard reported on Wednesday, in late 1999, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office investigators responded to the call from a local physician whose wife was dead. He reportedly suspected suicide. The Sheriff’s Department, according to the report, “did not initially treat Pelfini’s home as a crime scene, police records show, but they ultimately came to suspect Pelfini had killed his wife, Janet.”
Dr. Gill was called into examination and determined that the woman had died from asphyxiation, and her body was immediately cremated..
As the California Report notes, “The California State Bar investigated the handling of the Pelfini case and suspended the prosecutor from practicing law for four years for his role in suppressing evidence about Gill’s coaching sessions. The bar report devoted several pages to Gill’s errors.” The prosecutor had recognized there were problems with the autopsy, and had acted to coach Dr. Gill on how to explain them.
“Unfortunately,” it concluded, “Dr. Gill was not a competent pathologist.”
While Yolo County Chief Deputy Coronor Robert LaBrash could not directly comment on that case, however, he did say, “We were aware that Dr. Gill had some problem in a test find, that this was not his strongest suit. So that much we were aware of.”
“In terms of the competence of the autopsies he has performed for Yolo County,” Mr. LaBrash added, “We are extremely confident in the quality of the autopsies.”
He also said that the autopsies were performed under their eyes, they are there at every single autopsy. So if they agree with the results they sign off it. Ultimately the responsibility for such investigations falls squarely on the Coroner’s Office.
In fairness to Mr. LaBrash and his office, part of the problem in Sonoma County was that the prosecutor himself worked to overcome shortcomings in the report by coaching Dr. Gill and attempting to cover up weaknesses in the case.
Nevertheless, the fact that Dr. Gill appears fundamentally unqualified to performed autopsies seems to be a critical matter for those involved in court cases that utilize his findings.
The Vanguard asked Robert LaBrash if he informed the District Attorney’s Office or the Public Defender’s office about the potential for problems with autopsies as the result of Dr. Gill.
“I did not contact directly any of them,” he said. He did not know if the other agencies in Yolo County were aware. “Honestly, I don’t have that answer.”
However, the Public Defender’s Office seemed caught off guard by the news that leaked out earlier this week. The Vanguard has learned that the Public Defender’s Office is reviewing cases involving or relying on Dr. Gill’s findings, to determine whether these findings were critical to the cases they represent clients on.
This case has already brought up questions about who performed autopsies in some of the controversial cases that have arisen in the last two years, like the shooting of Luis Gutierrez, and the shooting death of Wayne King which was ruled a suicide by the coroner’s office.
Whether this impacts these or any other case is a matter for future scrutiny.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Good Job for Frontline and Vanguard. So here in good old Yolo, in the land where Justice is a fairly relative term, we have another case where a DA is hiding evidence, suppressing, influencing or intimidating witnesses so they can win cases. Yet many in Yolo seem to carry the protection Flag for our crooked DA.
And what a coincidence, this same Dr. that “works well with crooked DAs” ends up in Yolo doing 100’s of case. And now that the Dr’s credibility is in question, even if he admits that our DA coerced or influenced him on cases, good old DA Reisig will just say you can’t believe him he has lied before. What a great scam, employ and work with people willing to be a “team player” and help you win at any cost and then if it ever comes out that they is crooked, you just say I did not know and you can’t believe him if says anything against me…. Brilliant!
DA’s learn this practice from working and cutting deals with other crooks all the time. Cut a plea deal with a crook, get him to say what you want and if he ever turns on you, you say he is a crook you can’t believe him.
As for the Sheriff, lets see, we did a background, we were incompetent and did not find any of this serious negative public knowledge, we are surprised to hear about this, we notified the FMG not to send this guy to us, but “We are confident that he did a good job on our cases”.. lol.. Really?
People better wake up and demand some accountability from the people in our legal system or so called Justice system. I feel like Yolo should be renamed as a satellite office for Louisiana politics.
I think it is very unfair to blame the DA or the Sheriff for hiring this guy. He was employed by FMG, a subcontractor delivering services to Yolo County. They are at fault for not investigating the background of their employee. The doctor did not have a criminal background at the time of his employment, but without an accreditation body, there would be very few ways for the Sheriff to check on his competency. His employer could call all of the places he worked to check his references, but that is only if the employee lists them. (Remember the CASA employee that survived her background check by applying before her conviction appeared on state lists and not listing the employer that she embezzled money from on her work history.) In the end, the Sheriff did the only thing he had the power to do, once someone brought this doctor’s problems to his attention – request that this doctor not be sent to do autopsies in Yolo County. Or he could have canceled the contract altogether. I hope that FMG has gone further to more carefully check the qualifications and background of their existing employees and set up better hiring practices.
I agree that the sheriff’s office depended on FMG to do a background check on Dr. Gill. Once the sheriff heard about Dr. Gill’s inadequacies, he rightly asked FMG not to send him to Yolo. So I believe the sheriff’s office acted correctly.
But now I think the coroner’s office, the DA’s office, the Sheriff’s office and the Public Defender’s office should check some of the cases that were done by Dr. Gill and review these. If Dr. Gill was found at fault for doing a poor job in the past, he probably has continued to do so and could have inadvertently effected a case wrongly.
To now say that everything is just fine without a thorough review of those cases is not the correct thing to do.
Very interesting story, David. Good questions you raise. It shouldn’t take long to determine whether Dr. Gill or his work was involved in any criminal (or potential criminal) cases in Yolo County.
I’m surprised to see that county staff simply supervises contractors for the bulk of our autopsies. Don’t these people watch TV?! (It’s the [u]coroner’s people[/u] who find the hidden clues that determine whether there’s despicable dastardly deed involved and which of the many bad guys really did it–not some discount big-box body-checking business.)
One can’t help but surmise that the oversight that works for a trusted, competent contractor probably wasn’t adequate for the trusted Dr. Gill.
How much do we spend on this contract? Enough to pay staff to contact autopsies themselves?
“[quote]…we have another case where a DA is hiding evidence, suppressing, influencing or intimidating witnesses so they can win cases. Yet many in Yolo seem to carry the protection Flag for our crooked DA. And what a coincidence, this same Dr. that ‘works well with crooked DAs’ ends up in Yolo doing 100’s of case. And now that the Dr’s credibility is in question, even if he admits that our DA coerced or influenced him on cases….”[/quote] Here you go again, Roger Rabbit. Is there no [u]Vanguard[/u] story you won’t twist into yet another opportunity for your on-going gratuitous personal attacks on DA Reisig’s character?
I’d hoped your vitriol would become more tempered, but it continues unabated. I’m a little curious what’s brought you to such a hatred of our DA as a person (rather than to any actions he takes or the statement he makes). It must be a serious affront that drives you to such abusive ad hominems whenever David does a “Judicial Watch” story.
It seems like asking for documentation of previous employment history would be a minimal requirement for any personnel contracted to provide credible evidence in murder trials. The Yolo County Sheriff Department is an investigatory organization. They, of all people, should know that unexplained missing periods in a potential professional employee’s work history equals problems.
In the Frontline piece,the guy who hired Dr.Gill, at FMG, looked every bit as clueless as Sherriff Ed Prieto, when questioned about Gill’s work history. Just another case of the blind following the blind. Your tax dollars at work.
Are doctors given drug tests before they perform surgery? Before you invite a plumber into your house to fix your toilet do you check the internet to see if he is a sex offender? Are background checks performed on employees who work for consultants who contract with the school district?
If we don’t, then why are we being so hard on the DA and the Sheriff? Things slip by and that is just the way it is.
One thing that I find puzzling is the actions of FMG. They had a problem in Sonoma, so Gill goes to KC, but then they bring him back. That leads me to question FMG’s standard, people should really watch the whole Frontline, it’s an eye opener.
[i]”But that would be a mistake because it be political theatre – i.e., a performance for political benefit (appeasing/appealing to the electorate) that works against pragmatic results.”[/i]
I agree with Craised. I am not overly critical of Sheriff Prieto for making a mistake. He is human. Most of us would have made the same mistake. However, I would hope that going forward, this case results in a policy change, where the background check will now include a report on misconduct from the Medical Board.
[i]”One thing that I find puzzling is the actions of FMG. They had a problem in Sonoma, so Gill goes to KC, but then they bring him back. That leads me to question FMG’s standard.”[/i]
I think that’s a very good point. If there are other reasonable choices out there, Yolo County should probably no longer do business with that company.
[i]”If we don’t, then why are we being so hard on the DA and the Sheriff? Things slip by and that is just the way it is.”[/i]
I agree with Craised. I am not overly critical of Sheriff Prieto for making a mistake. He is human. Most of us would have made the same mistake. However, I would hope that going forward, this case results in a policy change, where the background check will now include a report on misconduct from the Medical Board.
“One thing that I find puzzling is the actions of FMG. They had a problem in Sonoma, so Gill goes to KC, but then they bring him back. That leads me to question FMG’s standard.”
I think that’s a very good point. If there are other reasonable choices out there, Yolo County should probably no longer do business with that company.
FMG is at fault here, for not properly checking the background of its employees. Frankly, I wonder why any county continues to use their services, since they are obviously lax in the area of properly vettings its employees. My guess is there are not many companies that do this type of work. And there is the conundrum…
Good for Sheriff Prieto and the Public Defenders Office, for doing the right thing…
ERM: “FMG is at fault here, for not properly checking the background of its employees. Frankly, I wonder why any county continues to use their services, since they are obviously lax in the area of properly vettings its employees. My guess is there are not many companies that do this type of work. And there is the conundrum…”
Found out from watching Frontline that FMG fired Gill…