Monday, March 20, 2000
A Doctor, a Deal Maker and a Mystery
Crime: Ties to biochem warfare
research, failed land ventures and gunfire--the Biofem
details pose more questions than answers.
They had planned to be rich
by now, the doctor and the businessman.
In December 1997, Dr. Larry
C. Ford and his Biofem Inc. partner, James Patrick Riley,
issued a 29-page business blueprint filled with ambitious
details about how their Inner Confidence female
contraceptive would give women a "proven method of
protecting themselves" from pregnancy and sexually
transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
By now, according to the
plan, Inner Confidence should have been on store shelves.
Sales should have been booming, surpassing $46 million by
year's end. And Ford and Riley, as founding partners,
should have been raking in the cash.
Instead, Ford is dead and
Riley is in hiding.
In a bizarre case that
becomes even more so as time goes on, police say Ford, a
soft-spoken researcher and observant Mormon, may have
been behind a plot to kill Riley, who was shot through
the face as he arrived for work at Biofem's Irvine
Spectrum office Feb. 28.
That in itself seems
incredible to those who knew Ford, 49, who apparently
killed himself three days after Riley, 58, was shot. But
then, Ford's friends were unaware of many aspects of the
doctor's life, including the illegal weapons and military
explosives he buried in the side yard and his tangential
involvement with South Africa's apartheid-era biological
weapons programs.
"It's pretty baffling,"
said Raymond Lee, Biofem's attorney, who is in regular
contact with Riley. "We talk daily, and each time we're
both going, 'I don't get it.' "
As investigators struggle
to unravel the disparate threads of the case, from secret
weapons caches to suspected biological samples stored in
an Irvine refrigerator, those living in the circles of
Ford's and Riley's lives are left with more questions
than answers.
The doctor and the
businessman hailed from starkly different backgrounds.
Ford was born and raised in
Mormon country--Provo, Utah. A family story about how he
and his future wife came together squeaks with
wholesomeness.
"They met at a Sunday
school party, playing Twister. It was my dad's game,"
said his son, Larry C. Ford Jr., a microbiology major at
Brigham Young University. That game has become a running
family joke. "We still have it at the house, so my
sister was never allowed to play with that game with boys."
After graduating from high
school, during which he won a national student research
award, the elder Ford completed studies at BYU and then
moved with his wife to Los Angeles about 1970 to enter
UCLA Medical School.
The young couple decided to
make their life on the West Coast, starting a family in
Los Angeles before moving to Irvine in 1987. Ford
completed his medical studies at UCLA in 1975 and stayed
on to teach, practice medicine and conduct research.
One part of his life,
police said, led someone to try to kill him.
An Unsolved Assault on Ford
About 1978, a gunman hid in
bushes outside a UCLA parking garage late one night and
opened fire on Ford as he approached his car. Four
bullets missed. A fifth struck Ford in the breast pocket,
where a stack of cassette tapes deflected it.
Ford sought to play down
the incident with investigators, said Arthur Longo, a
retired detective with the UCLA Police Department.
Neither a motive nor a suspect was ever found.
The incident didn't seem to
disrupt Ford's work. He eventually authored or co-authored
dozens of scholarly articles on such disparate topics as
gynecological cancers and the use of antibiotics to
control postoperative infections.
He also was coming up with
product ideas, including a method for reducing scarring
and a potion, drafted from a student's research, to cure
male baldness.
And he was lecturing. In
the mid-'80s Ford delivered a lecture to UC Irvine
medical students and faculty through a distinguished-speaker
program.
"He was considered a
real authority on gynecological infectious diseases,"
said Dr. Philip J. DiSaia, director of the division of
gynecologic oncology at UCI Medical Center.
While Ford was moving into
his medical career, Riley was moving into business.
Riley, an Illinois native,
studied science as an undergraduate at Cal State Long
Beach but apparently didn't pursue it as a career.
In 1973, at age 32, he
became the founding chief executive officer of First
Meridian Financial Corp. in Newport Beach, brokering
securities and insurance, according to a Biofem biography.
He sold off portions of that company in 1987, when sales
topped $25 million, and spent the next three years as
part of a management team for ToppMed Inc., marketing a
weight-loss dietary supplement.
Riley was busy with side
projects too, establishing a series of limited
partnerships in the '80s to invest in real estate,
including a firm called White Oak Partners Ltd., which
bought 300 acres of open land outside Houston. One White
Oak investor, William K. Russell, said he met Riley
through the Big Canyon Country Club, near Riley's current
home just north of Newport Beach's Fashion Island.
Russell described Riley as a deal maker who used his
insurance business to find investors for the land
ventures.
Russell said Riley
guaranteed nothing but anticipated the value of the
Houston land to grow by a factor of 10 within three to
four years. White Oak still exists as a partnership, but
Russell said the profits never materialized and he's
informally written off his $30,000 to $40,000 investment
as a loss. Another land deal, called Riley Land Partners,
went bust when the partnership couldn't make the payments,
Russell said.
"It was just a lark,
just a gamble to invest in some stuff and see what the
return was," said Russell, who owned Knight
Equipment International Co. in Costa Mesa. "He was a
fun guy, and he liked playing golf. He was a nice,
friendly guy."
DiSaia said he invested
about $100,000 in White Oak after meeting Riley through a
mutual friend. He also knew Ford separately, through
medical circles.
"Larry was the nicest
guy when I knew him," he said. "They're both
kind of mild-mannered people. This has really blown me
away."
DiSaia said his impression
was that Riley became involved with Ford and Biofem after
the land deals didn't pan out.
"Pat's a businessman,"
DiSaia said. "He can be tough, but most of the time
he's a very gregarious kind of guy. He's a great guy to
have a couple of drinks with."
DiSaia recalled going to
First Meridian Financial Corp.'s offices in Newport Beach
to discuss his investment. Over the years, he said, the
size of the office dwindled.
"It was a big outfit,"
DiSaia said. "He had lots of people working for him.
By 1990, it was just he and his wife."
By then, Riley had already
joined up with Ford.
Biofem Deal Is Sealed
Riley met Ford through a
mutual business friend who knew Ford had a project and
Riley was looking for new ventures. They met at UCLA and
Riley initially balked at Ford's plans, said Lee, Biofem's
lawyer.
Ford called Riley a few
weeks later to renew the contact. The two men met again,
and Riley decided to join with Ford.
It's unclear whether Riley
knew exactly what he was getting into.
Riley remains in hiding and
through Lee has declined several requests for interviews.
But Lee says Riley knew
nothing of Ford's reported links to the CIA--which CIA
officials have denied--or his role advising South African
researchers in biochemical warfare.
"He was not aware of
anything Ford was doing outside the scope of what Ford
was doing with the company," Lee said Friday.
Ford was introduced to
South African weapons developers through Dr. Neil Knobel,
former chief medical officer for the South African
Defense Forces, who said he met Ford at a party hosted by
the South African trade attache in Los Angeles in the
1980s.
Knobel said he and Ford
shared an interest in AIDS research. A year later, Knobel
spoke at an international conference in Hawaii, where he
again saw Ford and met Riley. Out of friendship, Knobel
later arranged to have Nelson Mandela autograph copies of
his autobiography, which he presented to Riley and Ford.
During the apartheid era,
Knobel had administrative oversight of South Africa's
covert biochemical program, called "Project Coast,"
directed by Dr. Wouter Basson.
Basson, nicknamed "Dr.
Death" by South African media, currently is on trial
on charges ranging from fraud to murder stemming from his
role in apartheid--including directing a program that
used commercial laboratories as fronts to develop
biological and chemical weapons.
In an interview with The
Times, Knobel said he introduced Ford to Basson. Basson
later organized a 1987 seminar with Ford for some of his
top researchers, said one of those present at the seminar.
Ford was not well-received.
"Larry Ford in my mind
is a fraud, same type of category as Basson is,"
said a weapons researcher who asked not to be identified
because he has been called as a witness in Basson's trial.
"They come with big talk and fancy stuff and gave us
a lot of so-called dirty-tricks materials. When we
analyzed it, it came to nothing of substance. He offered
stuff to us. There was not any question of us giving
stuff to him. The stuff he gave us was useless."
Ford's contacts with the
South African biochemical programs extended beyond
weapons.
Ford at one point used
researchers at Delta G Scientific lab, which under Basson
developed commercial drug products and covert sensory
irritants for the military, to work on a formula to treat
male baldness, said Dr. Johan Koekemoer, Delta G director.
Koekemoer said the project,
dubbed "Ford Hair," was conducted for Breaking
Thru Inc., then based in Newport Beach. The firm now is
registered at the same address as Biofem, and Riley is
listed as company president.
"I was surprised that
Basson came to us with a request like this since our
major objective was completely different from this,"
Koekemoer said. "Since he was my boss, I didn't
question that. As far as I'm concerned, it was quite
interesting chemistry."
A Murder Conspiracy
If Riley and Ford ever
contemplated a publicity campaign for Biofem, it's safe
to assume their plans didn't involve attempted murder.
But that's how the public first came to learn of the
little company in the Irvine Spectrum.
When Riley showed up for
work just before 10 a.m. on Monday Feb. 28, Ford was
already at work inside the building, police said. As
Riley emerged from his blue Audi, a masked gunman dressed
in black walked up and fired a single shot into the side
of his head, the bullet entering one cheek and fracturing
his cheekbone before exiting above his lip.
The gunman fled in a
waiting van, and Riley called Ford on his cell phone to
ask for help. He walked, dripping blood, to a cafe, where
a waitress summoned police and an ambulance, police and
witnesses said.
Less than 12 hours later,
police arrested Dino D'Saachs, 56, of Altadena, a Los
Angeles businessman and longtime friend of Ford's, on
charges that he was the driver of the van. Police charged
in court papers that D'Saachs was part of a conspiracy to
kill Riley. D'Saachs has pleaded not guilty.
The motive behind the
conspiracy, according to police, was money. But police
have yet to say exactly how that conspiracy worked. And
even though they have identified Ford as a possible
suspect, they have not explained how they think he would
have gained by the death of his partner.
The gunman remains at large,
a key reason why Riley remains in hiding as he recovers
from his wound. While police have their theories, they
still haven't wrapped up the investigation, which has
riveted Orange County with its bizarre twists and
lingering uncertainties.
A day after D'Saachs was
arrested, police searched Ford's home and discovered
items they described as "germane" to the case.
The next day, Ford met for nearly five hours with his
lawyer, Stephen Klarich, and told the attorney that he
feared police were going to tie him in with the botched
hit.
Then he went home and shot
himself.
In the days after Ford's
apparent suicide, police evacuated Irvine City Hall and
Ford's quiet Irvine neighborhood as they searched for
suspected hazardous biological materials. Some were found
in Ford's house, and tests continue to determine exactly
what was in the small jars. And a small arsenal,
including illegal automatic rifles and military
explosives, was excavated from the doctor's side yard,
within sight of Springbrook Elementary School.
Family members said they
knew that Ford had buried weapons in the yard, but his
son, Larry Jr., has said the family saw nothing unusual
in that, and never discussed it.
"I know what a caring
person he was," the son said the day after his
father was buried in Utah. "He would never do
anything to harm or endanger his family, or endanger his
neighbors."
'This . . . Was a Family
Deal'
Ironically, from a business
standpoint, the future still looks rosy, according to Lee,
the Biofem attorney.
"It's hard to say that
in the face of a tragic event like this," Lee said.
"It seems cold. Larry is going to be missed. Things
will unfold and people's attitudes about Larry might
change. Most people are still in disbelief and shock. You
have to understand that this, for a long time, was a
family deal in terms of how people felt about each other."
A large portion of the
start-up money for Biofem came from Riley's proceeds from
his earlier businesses, Lee said. Other outside investors,
whom Biofem refused to identify, also were brought in.
DiSaia said Riley told him
eight years ago that Ford "had something that was
the perfect contraceptive and that it would prevent AIDS,"
but that he wasn't asked directly to invest.
"Whatever he told me
sounded a little bit unrealistic, so I never pursued it,"
DiSaia said. "I don't know whether he wanted to use
me to raise capital or what he wanted me to do."
DiSaia said he heard
nothing more.
"I guess they kept it
a secret," DiSaia said. "I remember thinking to
myself, 'It must not have panned out,' because I never
heard another word about it."
But plans were proceeding.
Riley and Ford had hoped to drum up $6 million from
investors in 1998 to launch clinical trials. That money
didn't materialize until recent months, though, when an
unidentified East Coast venture fund came forward, Lee
said.
Ford and Riley had
reportedly disagreed about the clinical trials, but Lee
dismissed the dispute as just part of the normal flow of
business--similar to disagreements he's had with Riley
over legal aspects of the firm's development.
"In a 12-year
relationship, there are going to be some disagreements,"
Lee said. "Pat is a very intense, tough guy. That's
why he's the CEO. It takes the kind of tenacity Pat has
to get where this thing is today."
Lee said the trials are
still being planned. Dr. Peggy Pence, who is in charge of
the trials, said they probably will commence around the
end of the year.
"We expect a two- to
three-month delay" due to the shooting and Ford's
death, she said. "But everything is going ahead as
planned."
But the tenor has changed.
The early sense of promise and optimism has been
overwhelmed by grief and confusion. Riley remains in
hiding, left to contemplate both his brush with mortality
and police theories that Ford, the quiet business partner
he thought he knew, might have tried to have him killed.
"The guy still wants
to believe that Larry is not the guy," Lee said.
"He thought they had a relationship that was a
strong one, and he did not know about this part of Larry's
life. Pat did care for Larry, and he's still struggling.
What it's coming down to is that Pat is a pretty good
judge of people. He's shocked that he missed all of this."