State Attorney Calls 2 Doctors a Threat

SANTA ANA — An Irvine doctor and his anesthesiologist who allegedly allowed a La Habra woman to bleed to death while undergoing liposuction and cosmetic surgery are a threat to public safety, an attorney for the Medical Board of California argued at a hearing seeking a temporary restraining order against the doctors.

Orange County Superior Court Commissioner F. Latimer Gould also heard arguments from the doctors’ attorneys on Friday to decide if the two should be allowed to continue to practice. After arguments, Gould said he would reread all submitted documents before reaching a decision.

The Medical Board is investigating the actions of plastic surgeon William Earle Matory Jr. and Huntington Beach anesthesiologist Robert Ken Hoo in connection with the March 17 death of Judy Fernandez.

Outside the courtroom, Ruben Fernandez, whose wife died after 11 hours of liposuction and surgery, stood close to his family and said he wasn’t disappointed with the judge’s need for more time.

“This is not for my family,” he said. “This is merely a step to help society. If it takes a little longer, I understand that. We want to give the judge all of the time he needs.”

According to the complaint filed April 30 by the state attorney general’s office, Judy Fernandez, 47, bled to death during a $20,000 liposuction procedure that removed about 20 pounds of fat from six parts of her body. Matory and Hoo also performed facial operations and injected fat back into Fernandez’s buttocks and calves for reshaping.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Gayle Askren said the board wants to stop the doctors from practicing in order to protect the public. He and James Kovash, a state Medical Board investigator, argued that both doctors were negligent.

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“In 10 hours, this lady who simply wanted to look better couldn’t even be viewed at her own funeral,” Askren said, referring to the effects of the saline solution injections that bloated Fernandez’s body during the “tumescent” liposuction.

Attorneys for the doctors described the board’s efforts to temporarily suspend the doctors’ licenses as “Draconian.” The board, they said, did not have enough evidence; furthermore, the doctors’ attorneys had little more than 24 hours to prepare for the hearing.

“There’s a lot of window dressing--things that seem to imply some sort of wrongdoing,” said attorney David Rosner, who is representing Matory. “But the legal community doesn’t make decisions based on possibilities.”

Mark Levin, another attorney for Matory, said a decision should not be reached without looking at the incident in the context of Matory’s almost 25,000 surgeries, 23-page curriculum vitae and licenses in four states.

“That’s 0.0001% of the surgical procedures he’s performed in 21 years,” he said. “That one case does not forecast what would happen to Dr. Matory’s practice in the future.”

Outside of court, Ruben Fernandez disagreed with Levin’s argument.

“I have never killed another human being, I have never shot someone,” he said. “If I did such an act, I believe we already have a system that would basically put me in jail right away. These guys have had six weeks of exposing other humans to danger . . . The medical community has a little bit more leeway.”

Attorney Tammy Miller said she was asked two weeks ago by the family to help them present the case to the district attorney’s office.

So far, she said, she and attorney Robert Hartmann have collected potentially damaging evidence such as a 911 tape, medical reports and interviews with the paramedics at the scene.