0:01

Content warning. This episode contains

0:04

talk of addiction. If you were

0:06

someone you know is struggling with addiction, there are

0:08

resources in our show notes for today's episode.

0:12

This episode will feature legal declarations

0:15

given by Sarah and Charles Warren. The

0:18

voice of Sarah is read by Kat Protano

0:20

and the voice of Charles is read by Dylan Saunders.

0:28

I had struggled with drug and alcohol

0:31

use since I

0:33

was like younger, and I just, you

0:36

know, I was really

0:38

lost. We moved up to

0:40

California and I had started using

0:42

math.

0:44

In my head. Just really wasn't screw

0:46

down street.

0:48

The first time I speak with Sarah Warren, she's

0:50

in the car during an outing from rehab

0:52

with her father Paul. He

0:55

calls and puts Sarah on speaker. I

0:58

asked her to start at the beginning.

1:00

I think because of my

1:02

drug use and everything,

1:05

Like, our family was fighting

1:08

a lot and I just

1:10

wanted I wanted out,

1:13

and I thought running away

1:15

would somehow fix it. I

1:18

think I was just really kind of spiteful at

1:20

the time, and I kind of wanted to, like,

1:23

you know, like fuck you to my parents.

1:26

I'm going to like do something really crazy,

1:28

and I just

1:30

like got a lot more than.

1:33

I bargained for, and

1:39

there was a lot Sarah didn't bargain for,

1:42

especially once she got involved with Carmen Puliafido,

1:44

the dean of the medical school at USC. That

1:47

relationship led to a cycle of drugs and

1:49

rehab that had no end in sight. But

1:52

now she's decided to talk on the record,

1:55

so maybe there is a way out for her after

1:57

all.

2:00

My name is Paul Pringle and this

2:02

is Fallen Angels. This

2:04

is a story that started in a hotel room

2:06

in Pasadena and it ends with

2:08

the undoing of some of the most powerful people

2:11

in Los Angeles. It's about

2:13

influence and money and the

2:15

way they can eat away at people and make them

2:17

look past things they know are very, very

2:19

wrong. This

2:23

is episode six, Sarah's

2:25

story.

2:32

I met Carmen Puliafido working

2:34

as a prostitute. I

2:36

had like a lady pimp at the time, who connected

2:39

us through a website called Backpage

2:42

that I was.

2:43

Not aware I was even on.

2:45

She had set up a profile and he

2:48

had his own profile on that site, found

2:51

mine and contacted who he.

2:52

Thought was me, but it was really this woman.

2:55

And then he came to a hotel

2:57

room out in Branchio Cucamonga

3:00

and met me there for the first time. That

3:03

first night, we used meth together, we

3:06

had sex. I

3:11

got his number that night. I could tell

3:13

he had money because he just

3:15

didn't like hesitate to give me more when I asked

3:18

for it, and usually that was

3:20

something that people would argue about. So from

3:22

then on he would contact me, not

3:25

that lady, to come

3:27

see and it just escalated

3:30

really like quickly to where

3:33

you know, he would take me out to dinner and pay

3:35

me like money to go out to dinner

3:37

with him. Afterwards,

3:40

they always included like sex

3:43

and meth. He was always

3:45

excited to like try new drugs

3:47

or bring his own drugs.

3:54

So at first he would pay me, and

3:58

then after he would start buying

4:00

me like laptops

4:02

and like just like larger gifts.

4:05

I would kind of just spend time with him because he

4:07

was giving me like so much.

4:10

There came a time where he just.

4:13

He has such a big personality that

4:15

it really turned me off and I had

4:17

decided that I wasn't going to see him, and I

4:19

stopped seeing for about two

4:22

weeks.

4:23

But then she found herself in a dangerous situation.

4:26

A man she met online invited her to fly

4:29

to Portland, Oregon, but when she met him

4:31

there, he frightened her. She didn't have

4:33

the money to get home, and she was not going

4:35

to call her parents for help.

4:37

I was desperate at the time,

4:39

you know, and I

4:43

just felt really unsafe at the situation,

4:46

Like the man was not who

4:49

he said he was, and like kind

4:51

of turned violent, and I

4:53

didn't know who to turn to. And I just I

4:56

knew Carmen would be that he

4:59

could have to fly me back out, and I knew

5:01

he would be interested, and so I

5:04

called him and he flew

5:06

me back out to California and ended

5:08

up putting me in the Hilton for a couple of months

5:11

and then later.

5:14

Helping me get an apartment.

5:16

Juliafido paid Sarah's rent, he

5:18

bought her clothes, paid for trips, and

5:21

he bought her drugs.

5:25

Like if he brought me like a

5:27

large supply of heroin, you know, that was

5:30

like six hundreds, seven hundred

5:32

dollars, But if he got like d that's

5:34

like more expensive. Or if he brought

5:37

like a stash of roxies, those

5:39

are really expensive.

5:41

Roxies is a street name for a brand of voxy

5:43

codone. Pulliafido

5:46

doesn't seem concerned about the money. He

5:48

has a surgery practice, not to mention

5:50

his job as dean of the medical school. But

5:54

he didn't let either of those get in the way of a good

5:56

time.

5:58

His office was in like Beverly

6:01

Hills, when he would most of

6:03

the time come by after, but sometimes

6:06

before. I remember one time

6:08

that he was really late and he was

6:10

telling me about how like a doctor

6:13

like him always makes his patience wait at

6:15

least four hours. So

6:18

he was late to seeing a patient because

6:20

he was getting high.

6:24

And well, the Fido didn't seem that

6:26

concerned about keeping his two lives all

6:29

that separate. He would sometimes bring

6:31

Sarah to the Kech campus.

6:34

There were times he would set up doctor's appointments

6:36

for me at USC. He

6:38

just introduced me to all at

6:41

first. He always says his niece, and

6:44

I know it's like surprise, like this nineteen

6:46

year old niece or twenty year old I've

6:49

had we'se drugs

6:51

like in the car. We

6:53

were definitely both high.

6:56

One time, I think it was like three

6:58

am, and we like went to his office

7:01

and had a lot of fun.

7:02

I mean like used.

7:04

Drugs in his office and raided the

7:06

T shirts and stuff, uh,

7:10

methamphetamines, ecstasy,

7:13

GHB, sometimes

7:16

ketamine, sometimes like

7:19

MDMA. Sometimes

7:22

I would always use heroin, and

7:25

then later on he started using heroin

7:27

too, pretty

7:30

much anything.

7:31

And Sarah confirms what her mother had told

7:33

me about pulling your FEEDO delivering

7:35

drugs to her while she was in rehab.

7:38

One rehab I actually got kicked

7:40

out of because he later came

7:42

back and brought me champagne and

7:44

like dildo's and like

7:47

xanax bars, and then like four

7:49

am the next morning he brought like

7:52

math and a torch. I

7:54

think if I, like, had

7:56

I not been kicked out of Creative Care,

7:59

I probably would have gotten

8:02

sober sooner.

8:03

You know.

8:04

However, like he found

8:06

me like I was a prostitute just

8:09

having sex with people for money. So

8:12

in a way he kind of like took

8:15

me out of that CD world and like

8:18

put me into his own kind.

8:21

These stories of pull your FEETO enabling

8:23

a recovering addict to relapse, these

8:25

are the details that should force our editors

8:28

to act. I

8:30

asked Sarah to tell me what happened at the hotel

8:32

Constance, the incident that was my

8:34

starting point for this story.

8:36

So we were at the

8:39

Hotel Constance, and

8:41

we I had stayed there the

8:43

night prior, you know, using

8:46

like meth and heroin,

8:48

and I also had.

8:50

Like taken a drug called GHB.

8:53

It was me and Carmen, and

8:55

the night before there was like another

8:59

mail escort.

9:00

There, a male escort for Sarah

9:02

to have sex with so Puliafido could

9:04

watch. According to Sarah,

9:07

he's an avid voyeur.

9:08

I just took way too

9:11

much.

9:12

He was on like like escort

9:15

websites, like looking at

9:17

male escorts to come in for us, and

9:19

I was like getting ready. I

9:22

was putting on makeup, and like right

9:24

before I overdosed, he was just taking

9:28

a lot of photos of me. I even

9:30

have those photos now, and I can see

9:32

in the photos that I was like starting

9:34

to just heavily perspire,

9:38

and then right before I overdosed, he

9:40

was like trying to have sex

9:42

with me. And then I

9:45

think I just like passed

9:47

out, and that's when I think

9:49

he might have like left me alone

9:51

for a while. But

9:54

then we had to we had to move hotel

9:56

rooms because somebody wanted that room,

9:58

and that's when

10:00

they found out.

10:06

The fact that they had to move hotel rooms

10:08

may have saved Sarah's life if

10:10

they've been able to stay in the room. She thinks Pulliofido,

10:13

a practicing doctor, would have let

10:15

her sleep off her overdose and

10:18

she may never have woken up again. Sarah

10:21

also tells me that Pulliofido had made sure that

10:23

the cops didn't find everything they

10:25

had in the room.

10:26

I think the police found the drugs, well,

10:30

they just found the math because Carmen,

10:32

I guess, was able to hide

10:34

the heroine, the bongs, some

10:37

of the math, and the jeep. He hid it

10:39

in the stairwell like a couple floors down

10:41

in the stairwell, and

10:43

when we went back to the hotel, we went got

10:46

it.

10:47

Sarah and Carmen Pullliofido had gone

10:49

back to the hotel. That's news

10:51

to me. Devon Khan, the whistleblower

10:54

who worked at the hotel Constance and who

10:56

had first told me about what happened there, didn't

10:58

have that detail. Sarah

11:01

woke up six hours after her overdoes

11:03

in the hospital. That same

11:05

night, she and Puliofido returned to the hotel

11:07

to continue their party in another room.

11:11

It says something about pullio Fido's sense of his

11:13

own invulnerability, even

11:15

though the police had questioned him. He

11:18

wasn't worried about returning to the scene, and

11:20

it gives you a feeling for his recklessness

11:22

as well. Sarah had o deed.

11:25

But here they were again doing drugs.

11:28

After I woke up.

11:30

I was probably only

11:32

in the hospital for like thirty

11:35

minutes. They did a walk test

11:37

and then they released me. I

11:40

called Carmen and he came and

11:42

picked me up, and we went back

11:44

to the hotel and got another room,

11:47

and when got the drugs

11:49

out of the stairwell, he was just

11:52

so proud of himself.

11:54

Sarah tells me that this is not the only time

11:56

she ended up in the hospital after doing drugs

11:59

given to her by Six

12:01

months later, they're at the Balboa Bay

12:03

Resort, a fancy waterfront

12:05

hotel in Newport Beach.

12:07

He gave me all the drugs.

12:09

He watched me use them, but then

12:12

he left when I started

12:15

spinning out. So

12:17

this is like a meth overdose, or

12:20

like technically it was like

12:22

a meth psychosis, So

12:25

like it's not an overdose, like you fall

12:28

asleep, like I went insane,

12:31

and I was on the roof yelling.

12:34

I was talking with like aliens

12:37

and demons, and the world

12:39

was ending, and I was like

12:43

very violent.

12:44

The hotel staff founder on the roof screaming.

12:47

They called the cops, who came with paramedics.

12:52

The police came and I

12:55

was trying to fight them

12:57

and they had to.

12:58

Sit a me.

13:04

Sarah tells me there was someone else there that day,

13:07

her sometimes boyfriend, a Huntington

13:09

Beach DJ named Don Stokes.

13:12

Stokes is seventeen years older than Sarah

13:14

and, like her, struggling to beat a drug addiction.

13:18

I ask Mary Anne and Paul Warren if

13:20

they'll put me in touch with him, and they

13:22

do.

13:27

Don Stokes and I meet for lunch at a family

13:29

restaurant in Huntington Beach. So

13:32

when did you first start.

13:33

To struggle with.

13:35

Addiction?

13:37

I believe it

13:39

was somewhere in my mid twenties.

13:41

I thought, in my eyes, like a

13:43

cup of coffee in the morning, to some people, some

13:45

folks can't function without that first cup of coffee.

13:49

I would wake up, do a

13:51

small amount of math, and continue

13:53

onward.

13:53

With my day.

13:54

And so, how did you meet Sarah.

13:56

At one of my shows?

13:58

I showed up and she was living in a complex

14:00

next door, and we started speaking

14:03

and she says, you're a cowboy, Yes, you're honest,

14:05

Yes you're self employed. Yes, these

14:07

are not three traits that apparently women find

14:09

together nowadays, and she couldn't believe it. I

14:12

saw hers just learning

14:14

and exploring life and being fun loving again.

14:18

She was very young. I was in silver

14:20

livings drugs. I was not using drugs.

14:23

Don was in a solber living program in Orange

14:25

County after getting arrested for drugs.

14:28

It was a condition of his parole. But

14:31

he didn't stay for long after meeting Sarah

14:33

Warren because along with Sarah

14:36

came Carmen Puliofido.

14:37

I first met Carmen three four

14:39

days later after I met Sarah.

14:42

She introduced him to me and

14:44

was very elusive regarding who

14:46

he was.

14:48

He was a friend, is what I was told.

14:50

I had no idea that he was supplementing her lifestyle

14:53

by taking care of the rant, by

14:55

taking care of a number of superfluous

14:58

amenities, I'll call it less

15:00

amenities.

15:01

Does that include the drugs.

15:03

The drugs were just present, whether they

15:05

came from her, whether they came from him,

15:07

whether I brought something.

15:08

To the table, because I had.

15:11

Broken my own promise to myself

15:13

at that point in time and started dabbling once again,

15:15

even behind the backs of

15:17

those that trusted me from the Sober Living.

15:20

At first, Puliafido tried to get rid of the

15:22

new guy. He threatened to cut off

15:24

Sarah's drugs and rent money if he didn't

15:26

dumped on Stokes, but Sarah

15:28

ignored him, so Pulliofido changed course,

15:31

inviting don to join them for their parties,

15:33

like the one at the ball Bola Bay Resort that

15:36

ended with Sarah on the roof.

15:37

I had been told that Sarah was going

15:40

to be going into a treatment program

15:42

of some type, and the date

15:45

came where she was going to be going in. She

15:47

said, okay, I'm going to be staying down

15:49

in Newport. We're going to go get a hotel

15:51

for a week, and you're welcome

15:54

to come down. I've asked Carmen and he said okay.

15:57

So I informed the management at Sober

15:59

Living that I was going to be staying elsewhere for the night

16:01

and got a haul passed basically for the day,

16:04

and rode down there in aneuver. When

16:06

I arrived at the Balbo Bay Club, I was blown away. Beautiful

16:09

place, very upscale. Went

16:12

to the room and

16:14

there was a huge

16:16

water pipe. We're talking at least three

16:18

foot tall, handblown glass, and I'd

16:21

never seen one with an adapter to

16:23

smoke methomphetamines through.

16:27

I got very, very high, very quick.

16:29

At which point in time, Sarah starts

16:32

getting louder and louder, and I said,

16:34

I'm on probation at this juncture,

16:37

Okay, I need you to rain it in a bit, otherwise

16:39

I'm going to have to leave because you're causing

16:41

a disturbance. And she's laughing

16:44

uncontrollably and just

16:47

slipping further and further into this different

16:49

person.

16:50

She wasn't talking to me anymore.

16:52

She was talking to herself,

16:54

to other voices in her head. She

16:59

starts yelling about how much meth is in the room.

17:01

I said, I cannot be here for this. I

17:04

got up, put my clothes on, and

17:06

headed out the door, called

17:09

for a ride, and stood on the corner

17:11

of PCHM and the street

17:13

at Balboa waiting for my ride for.

17:15

Well over twenty five thirty minutes.

17:18

In that span, I saw no less

17:20

than a half dozen police units roll

17:22

in to take Sarah inticustody

17:24

as she was on the balcony and running through

17:26

the hotel wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

17:28

Screaming about all the method fetamines.

17:29

In the room

17:32

that night, going back to the sober

17:34

living that I had told him I was going to be staying elsewhere,

17:36

climbing onto the top rack of a bunk bed and

17:39

being spun out like nobody's

17:41

business.

17:42

Obviously, I couldn't.

17:43

Sleep, but to lay there shaking and going,

17:46

my God, I hope she's okay.

17:54

I was very concerned for her health, for

17:56

her mental well being, for her legal wellbeing

17:58

as well in that scenario, because again she was being

18:00

taken into custody.

18:02

She was released the next day. Finally

18:04

I get her on the phone.

18:05

She said, I'm really truly sorry about

18:08

putting you in that scenario myself.

18:10

Had I been there when the police arrived, I would have

18:12

gone to prison for six

18:14

years because I was on probation. I

18:20

was being kicked out of this sober living because I obviously

18:22

tested dirty after that night. So I stayed

18:24

for a few days in Sarah's old apartment and then

18:27

literally packed up a couple bags and

18:29

headed to the Phoenix House. In

18:33

fact, I was informed while I was there,

18:35

like Carmen was paying for my storage

18:38

and offered to do so. Just

18:40

said as long as you're pursuing your sobriety.

18:43

I will help continue pay for the storage unit,

18:46

and I know that that unit was not cheap.

18:48

He spent several thousand dollars just to make sure

18:50

that my personal belongings were there.

18:53

Don saw this as pulledio Fido doing him a

18:55

favor, but I'm not so sure.

18:57

Don has seen a lot and Nadan had a lot to lose.

19:00

Don talked paying for a storage

19:02

and it would be a small price to pay for Don

19:04

stokes silence.

19:17

I was facing jail time.

19:22

And I needed to get this

19:24

community service or this community

19:26

labor done. So I

19:29

broke it off as much like

19:31

fun, and I use

19:34

fun very loosely as everything

19:36

was. Having him like

19:39

touched me and having

19:41

to be intimate with him was by

19:44

far the hardest aspect of

19:46

all this because I'm not attracted

19:49

to him, you know, And you know, I

19:52

loved that lifestyle, but I also

19:54

really like hated

19:57

it because it

19:59

felt like he was really obsessed

20:01

with me and he really couldn't understand

20:04

why I wanted like other people.

20:07

And not him.

20:09

Right before I went into rehab for this final

20:11

time, we were talking about

20:14

looking at houses and stuff.

20:18

I knew that I just was

20:21

unhappy, and

20:25

I knew he had to get out of my life for me

20:27

to get sober. I went into.

20:29

Detox November ninth

20:31

of twenty sixteen, and that's

20:34

the last.

20:35

Time I saw him. Well, I

20:37

take that back.

20:39

He came to my community

20:41

labor one day and I saw him

20:43

from afar. But I, like,

20:46

you know, told my supervisor

20:48

that, like, I do not want

20:50

to see this man, and like you

20:53

need to tell him to leave.

21:04

Sarah's out of rehab almost five months sober

21:07

and wants to tell her story, and

21:09

she encourages her teenage brother to talk to

21:11

me too. I heard a little about

21:13

Puliafido's involvement with Charles Warren

21:15

from his mother, Mary Anne, but

21:18

Charles has a lot more to say. Again.

21:21

These are his words from an official transcript

21:23

read by an actor.

21:26

My initial encounter with doctor

21:29

Carmen Puliaffido would be

21:32

about the age, at approximately

21:34

the age seventeen. My

21:36

sister had invited me over to one

21:39

of the many apartments that she had gotten over

21:41

the course of time that she had

21:43

spent with him.

21:45

And he, you

21:49

know, he was just surprising

21:52

character.

21:53

He is a sixty five year

21:56

old guy that partied

21:58

like harder

22:01

than I had ever seen anybody my age party.

22:04

He took methamphetamine to a whole another

22:07

level. He

22:10

would go to liquor stores and

22:12

bring me with him buy kegs of beer.

22:15

My first encounter was when he was providing

22:18

me with.

22:19

Nitrous oxide and other substances

22:22

such as marijuana xanax.

22:26

There was ecstasy involved, and

22:31

there was also heroin.

22:33

Again, Polifido didn't bother to keep the

22:35

two sides of his life apart. He

22:37

would sometimes be partying with seventeen

22:39

year old Charles Warren, what would still take

22:41

work calls.

22:43

He would answer calls and then he'd

22:46

be like, all right, this girl really wants to suck

22:48

my dick. Be quiet, so I'm

22:50

going to answer this. And I went

22:52

to his office as well.

22:55

I was taken down to the bookstore by his secretary,

22:57

who was an Asian woman, and

23:00

she seemed equally

23:02

as scared of me as she

23:04

seemed of Carmen, which

23:07

really made me uncomfortable.

23:12

Every time I saw him.

23:14

If I was home alone at the house and

23:16

I wanted something, I could call him up

23:18

and he would send a package

23:21

that's filled with alcohol.

23:23

Even ecstasy at the time. If I was

23:26

asking for.

23:26

It, and definitely marijuana.

23:29

He would give it to an uber driver and

23:32

say it's important medical supplies or

23:35

it's important school

23:37

supplies that need to get there, immediately

23:40

send it over from Pasadena to

23:43

me. He had like a metal

23:45

box that he would keep drugs

23:47

in. There's a felt wining and

23:49

he keeps his emergency dash

23:51

of math under the felt lining. So you

23:54

can go in there with a knife and prop

23:56

up the felt lining and get under

23:58

there, and there will be meth under

24:01

there. It's guaranteed.

24:08

What I hear from Charles Ward makes for the most

24:10

damning allegations against Pulliafido

24:13

yet, since Charles was a minor

24:15

when Pulliafido first gave him drugs. Devon

24:19

Maharaj, the editor in chief of the La Times,

24:21

had told me he was quote open to more reporting

24:24

when he killed the first Pulliafido story. I

24:27

didn't believe that, but either way, this is

24:29

more reporting. Now.

24:31

The team and I go to work to get this story into the

24:33

paper. Reporter

24:38

Harriet Ryan writes a draft that includes

24:40

this explosive new material. We

24:42

submit through revised draft to California editor

24:44

Shelby Grad who agrees it's ready for the

24:46

top editors. He sends it on

24:49

to the number two editor at the paper, Mark

24:51

Duvason. I also said Mark

24:53

an email saying we need to get this published

24:55

as soon as possible. My sense

24:57

of urgency isn't just because it's taken near

25:00

a year to get to this point. I've

25:02

talked to two medical ethicists who told

25:04

me that The Times has an obligation to disclose

25:06

the information about pulldia Feedo promptly

25:09

because he's still treating people. Sarah

25:11

Warren told me he would see patients while

25:13

he was high. Mark writes

25:16

back, quote the new and much improved

25:18

story was given to me a few days ago.

25:20

I read it last night, We'll read it again

25:22

tonight, and we'll follow up with any questions.

25:32

Shelby Grad's edits are straightforward, but

25:34

Mark keeps dithering, just.

25:37

As sort of a sort of king pong back

25:39

and forth of adding detailed,

25:41

adding explanations, taking some things out

25:44

that they thought, you know, we might not

25:46

need restructuring here and

25:48

there. It was a very contentious

25:51

process.

25:51

Reporter Sarah Pargini.

25:53

Any journalist, any reporter

25:56

or editor could tell you that

25:59

at times, especially when it comes to an investigation,

26:01

the editing process isn't always fun,

26:04

but it was the first time in my experience

26:08

where.

26:08

It wasn't just.

26:11

The sort of standard

26:14

back and forth editing process

26:16

of like maybe you get a little bit angry

26:19

at the editor, or the editor might think like

26:21

you are not seeing clearly on

26:23

something, and you sort of have a little

26:25

bit of a bicker about that. It was

26:28

just an actually contentious

26:31

process that was

26:34

upsetting.

26:35

Shelby tells us his story is at the final

26:37

stage of lawyering for publication, but

26:40

days pass with still no word from Shelby's

26:43

boss Mark. I'm

26:45

so frustrated that I tell the Times legal counsel

26:48

that if the story is killed again, I'll complain

26:50

to HR. Not long

26:52

after that, Mark tells me to come to his

26:54

office. I've never seen him so angry.

26:57

He slaps his desk and jabs his fingers at

26:59

me. The newsroom handles its own problems,

27:02

he says, we do not involve HR.

27:07

It seems like for Mark, I've crossed the line.

27:10

He takes the story away from Shelby, who's

27:12

been working with us for months, and gives

27:14

it to the paper's new investigations editor,

27:16

Matt Doig, who was just recently hired.

27:20

Reporter Matt Hamilton.

27:21

Suddenly it's being kind of diverted

27:24

to this other editor who

27:27

has just arrived, has

27:29

no idea how we've gotten to this point,

27:32

and it felt like a delay

27:34

tactic. Frankly, the edits

27:36

came back in increments, and there

27:38

were edits, there were questions, there were

27:41

requests to tighten certain sentences or cut

27:43

or move, but we address those

27:46

really quickly. I mean almost

27:48

within hours of getting the

27:50

edits. We immediately turned it around and it's

27:52

like back into

27:54

that very slow waiting

27:56

period.

27:58

Reporter Adam Lmar is dumbfounded

28:01

by this new editor's judgments about

28:03

the story.

28:04

He took the draft and

28:06

he basically threw it out and

28:09

suggested his own draft

28:11

that he thought would be better

28:14

to publish. And we looked at it

28:16

and we just thought it

28:19

was not publishable, that it wasn't up to

28:21

the standards of the La Times.

28:23

There were certain things that were that

28:26

just right off the bat didn't make sense.

28:28

He wanted to take Sarah Warren off

28:31

the record. Sarah Warren was on the

28:33

record, cooperative source, our most

28:35

important source in the story. He

28:37

wanted to take her off the record

28:40

because well, one day she might

28:42

be thirty five and want

28:45

to get a real job, and this will

28:47

come back to haunt her. With his

28:49

rationale, I've never really encountered

28:51

that before where an editor says, let's

28:54

take a main cooperating source

28:56

who has no problem being on the record. Let's take

28:58

that person and put them off the record. That

29:01

was just flabbergasting to me. Another

29:04

thing was he tried to refer

29:06

to Pullifido as somebody

29:08

who's not a public figure. There was

29:10

a sentence in there that said something like, you

29:12

know, The Times doesn't normally write

29:14

about people who are not public

29:17

figures or your government officials

29:19

as far as like their private lives. And it

29:22

was one of those things where it's like, Wow,

29:25

you're kind of like giving Pulifido

29:28

his own legal defense here. You're

29:30

just opening it up for it when.

29:32

You have this kind of bulletproof,

29:35

well reported story

29:37

that has taken a lot of resources

29:40

sitting in

29:42

the queue where you're like, what the hell

29:44

is going on? Step reading out

29:47

the public health concerns, the public interest

29:49

concerns of like, well, he's still seeing

29:51

patients, Sarah one's still

29:54

trying to deal with her drug

29:56

addiction. The sources are pressing for

29:59

progress, and it waits

30:02

I can't convey how each

30:04

day it goes unpublished intensifies

30:07

the frustrations and takers of this team

30:10

of people.

30:12

The back and forth with Mark Duvison and editor

30:15

Matt doy goes on for months. I

30:17

noticed that the story won't run during the La

30:19

Times Festival of Books, which is hosted

30:21

by USC. It doesn't run during

30:24

USC's May commencement ceremonies.

30:27

I hear for my longtime confidential

30:29

source at USC, a person I call

30:31

Tommy Trojan. He tells me that there

30:33

are rumblings among Nikias's lieutenants

30:35

about an embarrassing story that might

30:37

be coming, but not until after the end of

30:39

the school year. How anyone

30:41

at USC could know that is beyond

30:44

me. My fear is that it's

30:46

being leaked directly from the newsroom.

30:49

We keep trying to address the edits to our draft

30:51

that seem designed to downplay Pullafido's

30:53

crimes or any hint of a cover up

30:56

by USC. The section on

30:58

USC's poaching of the Alzheimer's sure

31:00

is cut in half are reported in

31:02

two of Pullifeto's criminal associates

31:05

is cut for no reason.

31:06

So we kind of had to comb through this draft

31:08

to see, well, what has been cut.

31:11

There were a couple of key cuts that were like, Wow,

31:14

we don't I don't think we can let this pass.

31:17

One of them was the whistle blower. There was a

31:19

whistle blower who had called the

31:21

USC president's off.

31:23

The whistleblower is Devon Cohn.

31:25

He was cut from the draft, which was really

31:29

disheartening because this is the

31:31

only indication that we had that

31:34

US soon knew that PULLI Fido

31:36

was in the presence of a young woman who'd overdose,

31:39

and I'm telling him that was being taken

31:41

out, which was something that we couldn't really

31:44

allow that to happen. We emailed

31:46

Mark and we said we have some concerns

31:48

about this draft in terms of holding

31:51

USC accountable. We outlined maybe

31:53

some other concerns, and we asked to have a

31:55

meeting.

31:56

The reporting team. Harriet, Sarah,

31:58

Adam, Matt and me all agree

32:00

that this is one cut too far. That

32:03

Devon Cohn has to stay in the story.

32:21

Harriet Ryan, we.

32:23

All worked in a part of the La Times

32:25

old newsroom that was called Baja. The

32:27

newsrooms arranged like California, and so when

32:29

you get far away from the city desk and

32:31

the big offices, you get into Baja

32:34

and then Cabo like way out in the in the

32:36

end of the building, and so we all worked out

32:38

there and so we could talk

32:41

over our cubicles and stuff, but we were going

32:43

down to meet with the big bosses. We

32:45

would walk down this like long quarter that

32:47

went past all of our colleagues to

32:49

the big glass offices. People would

32:51

watch you move and there's like

32:54

five of us, and so it's like this huge group

32:56

going down and like the eyes of the

32:58

newsream are on you and they're just like, what's going on.

33:00

So we go into Mark dubs Sun's office.

33:02

It's glass on two sides view of

33:04

a city desk. He's sitting

33:06

behind his desk, and then there's Matt Day

33:09

He's sitting in front of his desk.

33:11

Adam l. Mark.

33:12

We talk about the whistleblower and how he's

33:14

being cut. Mark just kept saying,

33:16

well, you don't have a second corroborating source.

33:19

It was not This is really important fact

33:21

to holding USC accountable in this story.

33:23

This is an indication that USC knew what was

33:25

going on. How do we beef

33:28

this up or how do we make this

33:30

even stronger? It was just not for

33:32

me to cut it. You don't have a secondary

33:35

source. We just we just need to get rid of it.

33:39

And this was a very

33:41

critical, uncomfortable truth in

33:43

this story that USC

33:46

potentially knew about Puliafido's

33:48

conduct, and so to cut that

33:51

was it just betrayed what

33:53

I thought was our mission in journalism.

33:56

And so they said cutting the whistleblowers as

33:58

unethical. I don't, I can't stand

34:01

by it.

34:01

It just got more and more

34:03

intense, to the point where I

34:06

remember being told to stop shouting.

34:09

Paul and I had had such

34:11

scarring experiences with the management that

34:14

we're just like we're ready to go, like we're ready

34:16

to fight at any point because of what

34:18

we've seen in the past. It was just clear like

34:20

they were going to try to take this guy out, and

34:22

like, you take him out, you're taking

34:24

out the accountability of USC. We're

34:26

writing about this guy because of

34:29

who USC is, not because of who he is,

34:31

and we're starting to grasp

34:33

like they're going to try to just like gut the

34:35

main point in the story. And then Mark

34:38

says, guys, guys,

34:41

whether this is it or not, this is already

34:43

going to be the worst day of

34:45

Max m Keys's career.

34:50

It was a surreal moment. Why

34:52

would do we care whether

34:54

this is already going to be the

34:56

worst day of Max nicky's' his life. What

34:59

is the implication of that that we should ease up on

35:01

USC because it's already going to be a bad day for them.

35:03

Up to then and since then, I've never heard anyone say

35:06

on an investigative story about a powerful

35:09

institution, you know what, guys, this

35:12

is already going to be the worst day of

35:15

so and so politicians life. So let's

35:17

just excise a couple of bad

35:19

facts that they wouldn't like to be out

35:21

there.

35:23

Our investigation is filled with bad facts

35:25

about Puliafido, about the leadership

35:28

of USC. We have bad facts

35:30

confirmed in court records, through videos

35:32

and photos, in nine to one one recordings

35:34

with witnesses, and on the record interviews.

35:37

But it seems like our editors want to get rid

35:39

of the one bad fact that looks

35:41

the worst for USC.

35:43

I have a sense of just like blood

35:45

rushing in my ears, so so frustrated

35:47

and I not knowing what I

35:50

want to scream or burst into tears that this thing

35:52

was happening again. When I think about

35:54

the class on

35:57

Marx Walls, I just picture it just

35:59

sort of like pulse, like the rage

36:01

and frustration in that room.

36:03

It was a turning point.

36:05

I just remember saying, Okay, if that's your decision,

36:08

we need to go talk because we're gonna

36:11

decide what we're going to do. And that's

36:13

code for we're taking our names off the story. That's

36:15

a huge deal because they're not going to run the story without our

36:17

names.

36:19

The meeting has left all of us more determined

36:22

to restore Devon Khan to the story, determined

36:25

to get the story into the paper.

36:26

There was no way for the story

36:29

not to be run.

36:30

These bad facts have to see the light of

36:32

day. Dave

36:35

On Maharaj, Mark Duvson, and Matt Doig

36:38

deny that they did anything wrong in their handling

36:40

of the USC investigation, and they

36:42

maintained that any negative betrayal of their

36:44

actions is false. Next

36:49

time on Fallen Angels, our fight

36:51

to publish reaches a boiling point. At

36:53

the LA Times, she was just like.

36:56

Real aggressively, let's go, let's get to

36:58

the bottom of this.

36:58

And here was like a person power saying

37:01

like, okay, that's not okay.

37:02

Nobody should speak to you the way, but.

37:04

Our sources are starting to lose faith at

37:07

the time.

37:07

Why hey man, I've given you everything

37:10

I could possibly give you.

37:12

What is it?

37:13

And we discovered that Sarah Warren

37:15

is not alone.

37:16

Door was like, oh, this is my friend, Carmen.

37:18

I mean, in a million years looking at

37:20

this man, I would never have believed

37:23

he was the dean of USC

37:25

Medical.

37:26

It's insane.

37:28

My parents started contacting the police

37:31

about what was going on.

37:33

That's next time on Fallen Angels.

37:42

Fallen Angels, The Story of California

37:44

Corruption is a production of iHeart Podcasts

37:47

in partnership with Best Case Studios. I'm

37:50

Paul Pringle. This show is based

37:52

on my book Bad City, Peril and Power

37:54

in the City of Angels. Fallen

37:57

Angels was written by Isabel Evans,

37:59

Adam pink and Brent Katz. Isabel

38:02

Evans is our producer. Brent Katz

38:04

is co producer. Associate producers

38:07

are Hannah Leebowitz, Lockhart and On

38:09

Paho Locke. Executive

38:11

producers are Me, Paul Pringle, Joe

38:13

Piccarello, and Adam Pinkus for Best Case

38:15

Studios. Original music is

38:18

by James Newberry. This episode

38:20

was edited by Max Michael Miller, with assistants

38:23

from Daniel Turek and Nisha Venkat,

38:26

additional editings, sound design and additional

38:28

music by Dean White. The voice

38:30

of Sarah is read by Cat Protano and

38:33

the voice of Charles is read by Dylan Saunders.

38:36

Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton, Sarah Parvini

38:38

and Adam Olmaik are consulting producers.

38:41

Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl

38:44

Catle. Follow and rate Fallen

38:46

Angels wherever you get your podcasts