San Diego Union Tribune

Lam said to influence Tenet statement text

May 18, 2006

By Kelly Thornton

... As a condition of the settlement in the Alvarado Hospital Medical Center case, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam required the parent company, Tenet Healthcare Corp., to release an unusual statement...

...Attorneys for the hospital's former chief executive, Barry Weinbaum, who also was charged in the indictment, said yesterday that the statement was a face-saving maneuver by Lam after she and her office failed to persuade two juries to convict. Lam, a health care fraud expert, prosecuted the second trial herself.

"You've seen hostages in Iraq and Iran who have given voluntary statements, but what you don't see are the people off to the side with guns to their head," said Charles La Bella, Weinbaum's attorney. "This is a gun to the head."