Records detail how U-M attorney shut down child porn investigation
Newly released documents detail how a University of Michigan Health System lawyer shut down an investigation into the discovery of child pornography on a hospital computer nearly two years ago, keeping it out of the public eye for months and allowing the resident responsible to avoid immediate prosecution.
The records, obtained by AnnArbor.com from the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office through a Freedom of Information Act request, show a lack of oversight and documentation by hospital officials, which allowed the attorney to decide on her own that the case would not be reported to police.
Six months later, the case finally came to light when a doctor concerned that the investigation had been dropped brought it to the attention of the U-M Health System's Risk Management Department, which eventually led to more investigation and officials turning the case over to police. The police investigation ultimately led to a three-year prison sentence for Stephen Jenson, who admitted to possessing the child pornography.
Stephen Jenson
“I’m not sure that it was the process (that was flawed) as much as it was primarily one attorney sort of overstepping the bounds of what was expected of that office,” he said.
“If you’re looking at the aspect of how this was handled in the hospital legal office, it was mishandled largely by one employee. I don’t think it’s fair to say there was something wrong with the legal office.”
Many of the processes that led to the six-month lapse between the original discovery of the child pornography on May 23, 2011, and the eventual report to police on Nov. 18, 2011, have been fixed, university officials said. The University of Michigan Department of Public Safety is no more — replaced by a division encompassing all the university's security units — the attorneys who worked on the initial investigation into Jenson no longer work at U-M, and university officials continue to develop a clear line of command to help avoid miscommunication.
Fitzgerald said the university has tried to be as open as possible about the case and the issues that led to the six-month reporting delay. University officials have not released a $487,000 report done into the case, citing attorney-client privilege, although a different report was released.
“All the issues that have been raised, we’ve tried to address as quickly and as thoughtfully as possible, including the creation of a new division,” Fitzgerald said.
A shocking discovery
A pediatric resident at the University of Michigan Hospital was near the end of her shift on May 23, 2011, when she logged on to a computer around 10 p.m. to complete her patient charts before going home. She was working on computer, terminal WSPD3445, in a room only open to residents when she realized someone had left a thumb drive in it. The resident finished her work and then tried to identify the owner of the thumb drive by opening the three files on the drive.
According to her interview with police, it took a little while for the files to load. And then, all three popped open at once.
One of them was a Microsoft Word file with Jenson’s name on it. The other was a pornographic photo of an adult woman. The third was a photo of a child, who appeared nude, tied to a bed with a nude adult lying across the child’s body.
Stephen Jenson coverage
Here are some of the stories detailing AnnArbor.com’s coverage of the Stephen Jenson case.
- University of Michigan officials didn’t report child porn to police for six months
- Timeline in University of Michigan child porn case
- No external panel appointed yet to review U-M child porn reporting delay
- U-M child porn case: Judge refuses to accept Stephen Jenson’s plea agreement
- 4 University of Michigan public safety failures that contributed to 6-month child-porn reporting delay
- Stephen Jenson to serve minimum sentence for possession of child porn
“The child was definitely prepubescent,” the resident told University of Michigan police Detective Margie Pillsbury, lead investigator on the case. "I believe the child was between the ages of 5 and 10 years old.”
She said she panicked and left the room. She went home and came back the next day to the same computer she used the night before, trying to find the thumb drive. It was gone. She spoke to her adviser — Dr. Beth Tarini, an assistant professor of pediatrics at U-M — about what she saw and Tarini consulted Dr. Margie Andreae, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases and Tarini’s superior. Andreae directed Tarini and the resident to hospital attorneys and Hospital Security.
The resident then met with Corbie Wells, security supervisor at the hospital, and Brian Eichert, who was working as a temporary investigator in the hospital's loss prevention unit. Simultaneously, Andreae notified attorneys in the hospital legal department, who began their own investigation.
Wells said he then called U-M Police to see if they could aid in the investigation.
“I remember calling either U-M Police Lt. Melissa Overton or Sgt. Jason Forsberg and telling them I had a suspicious incident,” Wells said in the report. “I wanted to know if they could send over (investigators) to check the computer. I did not want to take the computer out of the room. I did not actually ever talk to anyone at U-M Police; I think I left a message on a phone.”
Forsberg's had a different recollection of the phone conversation. Forsberg emailed Overton on Dec. 7, 2011, and said he had no record of Wells ever asking police to look at the computer.
“My recollection is he began the story as a hypothetical ‘what if’: A staff person reported that she saw possible pornography on a USB flash drive,” Forsberg wrote. “Wells told me that there was no suspect and that the flash drive was gone. He asked if our computer forensic people would be able to tell anything by looking at the desktop computer that the flash drive was connected to.
“I told him that I did not know the answer to this but that we would be happy to look at the computer and see. I do not remember his response to this, but I believe that he said he had a couple more pieces of follow-up he could do and he would get back with me. If this is the same incident, I never heard about it again until November 2011.”
Shutting the investigation down
While Hospital Security was starting an investigation, Susan Balkema and Adil Daudi, attorneys in the hospital’s Office of the General Counsel, were starting their own investigation into the report. Balkema was the main investigator in the case and Daudi assisted her, records show.
The University of Michigan Health System's campus.
Daudi emailed James Simonis, a data security analyst with Medical Center Information Technology (MCIT) on May 25, 2011, asking him to pull the log-ins for the computer from May 23, 2011. In the email, Daudi informed Simonis that all work he did in the investigation was to be confidential and could not be shared with anyone except Balkema and Daudi.
“Your work that you perform in connection with your engagement, and all communications between you and us, shall be regarded as confidential and made solely for the purpose of assisting us in rendering legal advice, and therefore, is subject to the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product protection,” the email stated.
Later on in the email, which was also sent to Wells, Daudi wrote, “Please do not disclose to anyone, without our prior written permission, the nature or content of any oral or written communication with us in the course of this engagement. We ask that you communicate only with attorneys in the OGC about substantive issues, the results of your activities, or any questions that you may have.”
In an interview with police, Wells said he interpreted that email to mean “I could not do my job,” the report states. Wells also said he was later told in a conference call with Balkema and Daudi to drop the investigation entirely.
“(They) told me whatever I found out they wanted that information,” Wells said in the report. “They instructed me that they were conducting the investigation and I was not to work on it any longer. I was very upset because General Counsel had never told me what I could and could not do.
“They were telling me that they would handle it. They told me I could not talk to anyone and that I needed to go through them.”
Although Wells said he had never before got such a message from general counsel, he said it wasn't the first time he had been told to shut down an investigation.
“I had previously experienced the Office of Clinical Affairs shutting down investigations I was working on which were related to doctors. This was the first time I had ever been instructed by OGC to stop an investigation,” Wells said in the report.
Daudi denied telling Wells to stop investigating.
“I may have called Corbie Wells with Susan to ‘wrap up’ the case at some point. I don’t recall telling Corbie to stop investigating,” Daudi told police. “If Corbie said that we called him I guess that is possible, I kind of remember a wrap-up conversation that was made with Susan and I contacting Corbie.”
Fitzgerald said it was wrong of hospital attorneys to give Wells, or any other investigators, the impression that they should not investigate. He said the Office of Clinical Affairs has previously looked into allegations of hospital officials telling security to stop an investigation and found nothing.
The statements Wells made in the police interview may not have been accurate, given the context of the interview, Fitzgerald said.
Timeline
A timeline of major events in the Stephen Jenson case.
- May 23, 2011 - University of Michigan Hospital resident discovers child pornography on Stephen Jenson’s thumb drive left in computer.
- May 24, 2011 -Resident reports what she found to her adviser. Investigation begins.
- May 25, 2011 - Attorneys send emails to hospital personnel saying all findings of their investigation should be brought to the attorneys.
- June 2, 2011 - Resident who discovered the child porn meets with attorney. She tells the resident the investigation is closed and nothing was found.
- November 2011 - Resident’s adviser, Dr. Beth Tarini, decides to bring concerns forward after learning the attorney has been fired.
- Nov. 11, 2011 — Tarini speaks with Rick Boothman, from Office of Risk Management, about the child pornography and the investigation in May.
- Nov. 12, 2011— The resident speaks with Boothman about her experiences in May and the investigation.
- Nov. 14, 2011 - Martha Boonstra, attorney in the U-M Hospital Office of the General Counsel, receives records on the investigation. Boonstra begins investigating the complaint.
- Nov. 17, 2011 - Boonstra meets with the resident who discovered the child pornography.
- Nov. 18, 2011 - Police are notified of the case and begin criminal investigation.
- Nov. 21, 2011 - Police seize computer on which the thumb drive was found, interview resident who discovered child pornography.
- Dec. 1, 2011 - Police ask for — and receive — search warrant for Jenson’s Pittsfield Township condominium.
- Dec. 2, 2011 - Police execute search warrant on Jenson’s home. Jenson interviewed for the first time about the report. Jenson is suspended.
- Dec. 16, 2011 - Investigators find 17 confirmed child pornography images and 60 suspected child pornography images in Jenson’s possession. Jenson is arrested and taken to the Washtenaw County Jail. Warrant approved for four charges of possession of child sexually abusive material. Jenson fired from University of Michigan Hospital.
- Dec. 17, 2011 - Jenson arraigned on the charges at the jail and released on bond.
- Jan. 29, 2012 - AnnArbor.com first reports the six-month lapse between the initial discovery of the child pornography and the beginning of the police investigation.
- Jan. 30, 2012 - U-M Health System Chief Executive Officer Ora Pescovitz calls the incident a “painful moment in our history.”
- Feb. 10, 2012 - U-M officials release internal review into the incident. U-M President Mary Sue Coleman calls the incident a “serious failure.”
- Feb. 16, 2012 - The state charges against Jenson are dropped in favor of federal charges. He’s arraigned in Detroit. U-M Regents order external review done in the case.
- April 6, 2012 - External review into the case by law firm Latham and Watkins begins.
- Sept. 13, 2012 - Jenson attempts to plead guilty to possession of child pornography but federal judge rejects the plea deal.
- Oct. 19, 2012 - U-M announces creation of Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS). Officials begin the process of finding permanent executive director for the division.
- March 21, 2013 - Jenson’s plea deal is accepted and he is sentenced to the minimum of three years in federal prison.
“Some things are never really followed up on from a police investigation because they’re not pertinent to the criminal investigation,” he said. “They may or may not be accurate because they’re based on recollection. If they’re not critical to the criminal investigation … the police are focusing on the most pertinent information.”
While Wells stopped his investigation of the incident after being instructed too, Balkema and Daudi continued theirs.
Emails sent among Balkema, Daudi and Simonis included in the police report show there was some difficulty finding out exactly what happened on the computer on May 23, 2011. Simonis was able to confirm Jenson was on terminal WSPD3445 from 6:12 p.m. until 8:23 p.m. on May 23, 2011. The resident who found the thumb drive logged on from 10:12 p.m. until 10:56 p.m.
According to the report, Jenson got back on the computer at 7:50 a.m. on May 24, 2011, for just seven minutes. There were no other users between when the resident logged off on May 23, 2011, and Jenson logged back on.
In emails dated May 26, 2011, Balkema and Daudi said they had trouble viewing the data Simonis was sending them. Daudi told police they asked Simonis if he could see what files were looked at on the computer. Simonis replied that he could only look at who logged on and off and not what was opened.
Daudi said Balkema took the lead on the investigation. An interview with the resident was scheduled for June 2, 2011.
The resident told police she met with Balkema, who told her “the investigation was complete and that they determined the concern was unfounded,” the report states.
According to the report, the resident was told Hospital Security confiscated the hard drive and “recovered nothing.” Balkema said she wanted to know who the resident had told about the report and, should she speak about what she found, it could be considered slander against Jenson, according to the report.
“She told me that no one had talked to Jenson about it,” the resident told police. “She told me that if I really ‘wanted to protect children’ I should have taken the thumb drive and given it to security. This meeting went on for close to an hour and I was crying and very upset by the time it was over.”
After the meeting, Balkema emailed Daudi: “God, that resident crying has really thrown my whole day off! And I wasn’t even rude. Maybe she was trying to make me feel sorry for her. I don’t like to make women cry.”
Attempts to reach Balkema for comment were not successful.
Free rein
Balkema was largely allowed to make the decision to stop the investigation on her own, records indicate. Her superior, Margaret Marchak, told police she remembered Balkema telling her “there was nothing there.” There were no records in the case’s file, aside from the reports from MCIT and a couple of emails, according to the report.
There were no written report or written notes explaining how the case was done or how Balkema came to the decision that the resident’s claims had no merit, Marchak said. That was generally how the hospital’s legal department operated.
“The attorneys in our office are free to open and close matters without consulting me,” Marchak told police. “It is expected that the work we do will be documented, but there is not a policy or procedure in place currently to assure that happens.”
Fitzgerald said last week that one of the first recommendations from reports done for the university after the case came to light was creating a common database for reports. He said there was a common reporting system between different agencies at the time, but that system has been strengthened.
Fitzgerald said the university has recognized from the start that Balkema's decision to drop the investigation was inappropriate. He said attorneys in the Office of the General Counsel are not supposed to conduct a criminal investigation autonomously.
Balkema and Daudi no longer work for the university, Fitzgerald said. University officials have said that Balkema's departure was not related to the Jenson case.
Heading to police
After Balkema told the resident the investigation was complete in June, nothing happened until Tarini and Andreae began discussing the case again after former Penn State University defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky hit the news.
Sandusky was being charged in November 2011 with molesting numerous children during his time at Penn State. Andreae told Tarini that Balkema was fired soon after she made the decision to stop investigating Jenson. Andreae suggested Tarini bring the case to Rick Boothman at the hospital’s Office of Risk Management.
Tarini told police she spoke with Boothman on Nov. 11, 2011, and told him about the resident’s experiences with Balkema. Tarini said Boothman wasn’t surprised.
“He said that this was serious and that the attorney was fired for behavior like what I was describing,” Tarini said in the report.
However, Tarini was initially put off by Boothman’s attitude toward the case, according to the report. He said there was a lack of proof, a long time had passed since the initial report and the thumb drive was gone, Tarini said in the report.
The resident who found the thumb drive met with Boothman the following day and told Tarini the meeting went fine, according to the report. However, Tarini wasn’t pleased with how she saw things playing out, so she decided to contact Dr. Valerie Castle, chairwoman of the hospital’s pediatric department.
“Dr. Castle listened to the report and was very concerned,” Tarini told police. “I felt like she understood the seriousness of this incident. Dr. Castle assured me that she would make sure the matter was looked into.”
On Nov. 14, 2011, Boothman turned the complaint over to the hospital's legal department, which gave it to Martha Boonstra, associate general counsel. By the next day, hospital officials were discussing a “time out” for Jenson while the case was investigated.
The next day, Boonstra indicated she thought the case would need to be turned over to police.
“We have made preparations for submitting a report to the proper authorities by the most expeditious means possible, if such reporting is found to be required,” she wrote in a Nov. 15 email to multiple officials involved in the investigation.
However, on the night of Nov. 15, the resident who originally discovered the thumb drive expressed apprehension about the investigation moving forward.
“You must understand that I thought this situation was completely settled months ago,” she wrote to Pediatric Residency Director Dr. Hilary Haftel. “It was directly against my request and certainly without my permission that Dr. Tarini meddled in this situation and involved the legal department for a second time.”
Haftel met with the resident the next day and calmed her fears, according to an email she sent Boonstra. Boonstra interviewed the resident and, on Nov. 18, brought the case to Hospital Security and told them to bring the case to police. Hospital security called Overton and the police investigation began.
An arrest, charges and a conviction
After that, the case moved quickly. On Nov. 21, 2011, Pillsbury began doing interviews, and the computer used by Jenson on May 23, 2011, was seized. A forensic examination corroborated the resident’s story that she opened images on the thumb drive that belonged to Jenson.
Pillsbury spent much of the next week talking to individuals connected with the case and collecting a paper trail of emails showing what happened in May, the report shows. Pillsbury contacted Balkema, who declined to speak with police, citing attorney-client privilege.
On Dec. 1, she obtained a search warrant for Jenson’s condominium in Pittsfield Township.
Investigators interviewed Jenson for the first time on Dec. 2, 2011, when Pillsbury and Forsberg served the search warrant. The Salt Lake City native said his original thought was that he accidentally viewed child pornography while visiting adult dating sites, the report shows.
“The first time I unintentionally looked at child pornography was about five years ago,” Jenson said in the police report. “The last time was within the last few months. I have viewed these images both at work on U-M Hospital computers and at home on my personal computer.”
Police searched Jenson’s home and seized two Toshiba laptops, an iPod, 3 thumb drives, a Sony camera, two Verizon cellphones, a CD, an external hard drive, CD-Rs, a binder of CDs, a Palm Pilot, seven 3.5-inch floppy disks, three zip drives, an RCA mp3 player, a Vivitar 35-millimeter camera with exposed film and an envelope that was addressed to Jenson, according to the report.
The search warrant was served before Jenson went to work on Dec. 2, 2011. Boonstra told police Jenson informed his superiors about the search warrant that day.
“We asked if the police were going to find anything and he replied yes,” Boonstra said. “We asked what. He said images of minors. We asked how many and he said 20. He further explained that this was something he had done while he was in medical school and that he should have gotten rid of them. He said that he needed counseling.
Jenson was suspended that day, Boonstra said.
A forensic scan done on Dec. 16, 2011, on the items seized from Jenson revealed there were 17 confirmed images of child pornography in Jenson’s possession and 60 suspected images. Jenson was fired on Dec. 16, 2011, and arraigned in Washtenaw County on four counts of possession of child sexually abusive material on Dec. 17, 2011.
In February 2012, those charges were dropped and Jenson was charged with one count each of receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography by federal prosecutors. On March 21, 2013, Jenson was sentenced to serve the minimum of three years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography. The charge of receipt of child pornography was dropped.
AnnArbor.com attempted to contact Tarini, Boonstra and the resident who initially discovered the thumb drive. They did not respond to the requests for comment. AnnArbor.com is not naming the resident to protect her anonymity.
A year of change
Jenson’s case, and the revelation of the six-month gap between the discovery of the thumb drive and the beginning of a police investigation, sparked a period of change at the University of Michigan.
The most dramatic impact was the creation of the Division of Public Safety and Security. Previously, the University of Michigan Police, Hospital Security and Housing Security were all separate entities. In the new division, all of those agencies are under the same umbrella.
Fitzgerald said this change clears up any confusion about when to report possible criminal complaints and who to report them to.
“We have a very good security agency in the health system, we have the same with the University of Michigan Police Department,” Fitzgerald said. “With those two units reporting as a part of the same division it makes it a more seamless process and things aren’t going to get (lost).”
In 2012, the University of Michigan Board of Regents commissioned an internal and two external reports into the Jenson case. The Margolis Healy external report cost the university $120,000 and a second report, the details of which are sealed due to attorney-client privilege, cost $487,000.
The Margolis Healy report listed broken and nonexistent trust between units, fear of police by some security officers and staff members, unclear roles between units and poor communication and lack of leadership and protocol as four of the main problems with the university’s security outfit.
Fitzgerald said university officials took these recommendations seriously.
“It’s changed a lot. On a day-to-day basis there was a lot of cooperation before and that’s been strengthened and enhanced,” he said.
The Division of Public Safety and Security is still searching for its new, permanent leader. U-M Police Chief Joe Piersante is currently the interim director of the division and has been leading it since its inception last fall. The chiefs of every branch of the division — the Police Department, Housing Security, Hospital Security and Security — report to the head of the division, who reports directly to the university president.
Other universities, such as Ohio State University, follow a similar model.
In the wake of the Jenson case, university General Counsel Suellyn Scarnecchia resigned her post and was eventually replaced by Timothy Lynch. Fitzgerald said at the time Scarnecchia’s departure was not related to the Jenson controversy. Debra Kowich took over as the interim general counsel until Lynch was hired, and Kowich now serves as interim director of the Health System Office of the General Counsel, which is looking for a permanent director.
Fitzgerald said officials are working every day to make sure an incident like the one involving Jenson doesn’t happen again.
“We took full responsibility right from the beginning that this wasn’t handled properly,” he said. “We’ve made tremendous progress moving forward over the last two years.”
Kyle Feldscher covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
Comments
sheri barron RN,BSN
Wed, May 22, 2013 : 12:36 p.m.
Sometimes employees even transfer to the State Prisons (to work).
4mytown
Sun, May 5, 2013 : 2:10 a.m.
Very good journalism! Thank you for getting the details of this story out. Hopefully it will serve as an example to the university employees who seem to have tried to keep this quiet.
Paula Gardner
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 4:25 p.m.
A sincere thank you to all of the readers who contributed to the thoughtful comments on this story. We also appreciate the feedback about the depth and quality of the story. As one little aside, one commenter did mention that he'd tried to get us interested in this story earlier. It's probably obvious that when we're already making information requests and pursuing an angle that we don't need to duplicate the information flow. However, we do appreciate story suggestions.
Geoff Larcom
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 3:04 p.m.
Among the the most constructive and insightful collection of comments on a Dot.com story since the website opened in July 2009. A very good sign for Ann Arbor journalism.
Watcher
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 12:18 p.m.
The second scandal here is that the University paid half a million dollars to a high priced Chicago law firm to reveal what easily would have come out of an internal investigation. Even if an outside review was needed, couldn't the University have found someone who charged less than $725 per hour?
a2citizen
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 1:34 p.m.
For $300,000 I would have gladly posted a bunch of placards that say: "If you suspect a crime has been committed, dial 9-1-1."
lefty48197
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 11:31 p.m.
If your "legal system" does NOT report instances of alleged child pornography trafficking, then by definition, the legal system is flawed.
Jay Thomas
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 11:07 p.m.
Another great accomplishment of the Mary Sue era. She didn't know anything, she was too busy hiding in the broom closet.
Nicholas Urfe
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 2:15 p.m.
Whenever I mentioned the child porn cover-up and transparency in the MSC rah-rah retirement thread of her accomplishments, my posts were removed. It was deemed off topic, and yet I thought it defined her presidency.
mady
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 1:59 p.m.
Under the broom!
Arborcomment
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 9:56 p.m.
Thank you Kyle, great follow-up. Simply put, a hospital attorney handles the BUSINESS of a hospital, and has NO BUSINESS touching a criminal matter. But we knew this - the issue is the culture and procedures that allowed a business lawyer jurisdiction and control over a criminal investigation. The evolution of three fiefdoms of security at the U facilitated this and it was at its' strongest at the hospital. Through several reorganizations since the early 1980's, from a shift from contracted "security" to full-fledged police powers of UM campus officers, this accident waiting to happen was known by the workforce and management within security. But making the hospital give up "their" security force via a merger was not possible in that fiefdom.
Arborcomment
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 9:59 p.m.
Sorry, hot reply too soon. In addition, a merger and bringing sworn police officers into the hospital security system was met with resistance from the existing security management there. They realized that such a move would be a "take-over" and THEIR management jobs would be at risk.
a2citizen
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 8:14 p.m.
Kyle, Excellent article that answers a lot of questions. And those answers open up a couple new questions. Do you know why balkema left (or was fired, as is claimed by Andreae) ? It's mind boggling that all those attorneys can be involved and not one is held accountable. One was even allowed to transfer to a teaching position at the U-M law school.
a2citizen
Sun, May 5, 2013 : 12:45 p.m.
Kellie, If you are going to block my response to your question then it would be polite to remove your question.
Kellie Woodhouse
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 4:16 p.m.
a2citizen- which attorney are you referencing that went to the law school?
ArgoC
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 7:59 p.m.
Wow lots of detail on this, thanks.
Audion Man
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 7:23 p.m.
Kudos on printing this, Ann Arbor.com. The UM Health System has behaved shamefully in this situation.
Psudolus
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:39 p.m.
Holy Crap, investigative journalism in Annarbor.com!
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:33 p.m.
It seems like quite a coincidence that the people who "no longer work at the University" all resigned for unrelated reasons. In response to my FOIA for any documentation of personnel actions taken as a result of this incident, the University responded that no such documents exist. In other words, no one was held personally responsible for the cover up.
Cendra Lynn
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:52 p.m.
"If you're looking at the aspect of how this was handled in the hospital legal office, it was mishandled largely by one employee. I don't think it's fair to say there was something wrong with the legal office." What? Are you saying that what any one employee does says nothing about how the legal office is run? Really?
accountable
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:46 p.m.
There were no fewer than nine individuals (other than the attorneys) who touched this case before the University police were brought in -- the resident who discovered the information, her adviser, the adviser's superior, a hospital security supervisor, a data security analyst, the risk manager, the chair of the Pediatric Department, the attorney's office (for the second time), and hospital security (for the second time). None of the individuals contacted the police themselves until the attorney's office directed hospital security to do it six months after the original report. Is it not clear how the University can credibly say that there is not a flawed process at the University when several highly placed individuals at the University all had a crime reported to them and NONE of them contacted the police themselves or felt empowered to do so. Apparently everyone thought it was 'someone else's job' to contact the police. The University statement in this matter reflects a clear acceptance of the collective decision that it rested on a single office to ensure a report was made to the police -- the attorneys -- rather than the responsibility of the entire community to do what was necessary. That the University still has not recognized or accepted the cultural deficiencies that allowed at least nine highly placed individuals to take no ownership over the situation should leave us with little confidence that anything has been remedied.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:30 p.m.
Kyle didn't mention the Chief Compliance Officer for the University Hospital as one who was notified and who referred the case to the Hospital lawyers in the first place.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:28 p.m.
A point of clarification: Adil Daudi did not leave U-M because of this case. Rick Fitzgerald told me today that Daudi decided to resign and return to private practice by his own volition. Fitzgerald also emphasized that Rick Boothman was one of the reasons the investigation moved toward police and Fitzgerald told me that Boothman took this case very seriously and the concerns from Beth Tarini about how he was handling the case were simply her concerns.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:45 p.m.
Abe - I didn't delete any of your comments. I would email Kyle Mattson if you have concerns about things that were deleted. His email is kylemattson@annarbor.com.
Honest Abe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:38 p.m.
Kyle- Did you delete one of my comments? If so, you should repost it. It did not violate anything. If you don't believe me, perhaps reposting and letting the readers decide would support my request. I post on all sorts of other media sites, and never experience the amount of comment removal that I do on A2.Com. We're all adults on here. Yes, there will be disagreements and perhaps heated exchanges, but this is America. As long as there is no violence, threats of physical harm, our comments should be left alone. Now, please repost the comment I posted. Thanks.
Honest Abe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:28 p.m.
By the way- 'Hospital Security' is NOT a law enforcement or authority agency of any type. Their job is to try to create a presence and 'deter' crime, without a hands on role. When despicable acts such as this doctor who likes child porn is discovered....the REAL authorities need to be involved.....such as the POLICE! Not 'security'. They're obligated to call the POLICE! Real cops, who can arrest and turn you over to the DA. Any person or persons who were aware of this and did not IMMEDIATELY contact the POLICE, should at the bare minimum have their job TERMINATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
81Viking
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 8:12 p.m.
Who said Hospital Security is a law enforement agency? Did you just make that up? Hospital Security never claimed to be law enforcement. If you read that somewhere it is a lie.
napoleonrisen
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 4:46 a.m.
Relax Abe. We all know UM has real police and everything is not black and white and No, I am not referring to this example.
Solitude
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:22 p.m.
"She spoke to her adviser — Dr. Beth Tarini, an assistant professor of pediatrics at U-M — about what she saw and Tarini consulted Dr. Margie Andreae, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases and Tarini's superior. Andreae directed Tarini and the resident to hospital attorneys and Hospital Security." The above is where this all started, and yet it appears not one of these three people is being held accountable. The university's spin doctor..excuse me..."spokesman"...Rick Fitzgerald, can say with a straight fact that all this is because of one attorney who conveniently no longer works there? Perhaps they believe if they say it out loud enough times it will somehow become true. Based only on what is reported in this article, I'd say there's a great deal more here to be investigated. I'd also say the state legislature should demand the "sealed" report be released to the taxpayers of this state immediately.
Honest Abe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:15 p.m.
Perhaps a good 'house cleaning' should take place. They ALLOWED this guy to work with the public. Pehaps my son, my daughter, my niece, my nephew, my friend......
Honest Abe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:11 p.m.
Can't tarnish precious UM's reputation. Even if it at the cost of other peoples safety. Who knows what else this guy was doing besides child porn. This is why I cannot stand UM. Everybody thinks UM is so special, when it's really not.
KathyMac
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:06 p.m.
The Office of Clinical Affairs takes care of their own...doctors.
Solitude
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:51 p.m.
I'm quite stunned to read that this Dr. Margie Andreae, the person over the resident and the resident's adviser, is not being called on to explain, and being held responsible for, her failure to report. She is the one who, according to the article, told the resident to report to hospital attorneys and security, and reported to the attorneys, not the police, herself. Then, after Penn State, when she was undoubtedly worried about CYA, the article states "Andreae suggested Tarini bring the case to Rick Boothman at the hospital's Office of Risk Management." Again, Risk Management (whose risk at this point needs to be managed? Her own?), not the police. Risk managers are tasked with protecting organizations from legal liability. She obviously was aware of potential liability here, which means she knew the correct action was not taken initially. This is a medical doctor, a professor of both pediatrics and communicable disease and a supervisor of others at a nationally renowned medical center. She is absolutely the person who is responsible for setting this entire farce in motion. The argument can easily be made that had she done the right thing immediately, which would have been to instruct Tarini and/or the resident to call the actual police, and or contact the actual police herself, a proper criminal investigation would have been launched immediately and none of what followed would have occurred. Why is this person not being charged with failure to report? Why does she still have her job? This all started with three people, two of which reported to her... why is there no demand for her to explain her actions and be held accountable? The idea that the university has "moved beyond" this and has made improvements is exposed as a colossal lie until this Dr. is held responsible for her actions.
81Viking
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 8:05 p.m.
Amen, Solitude!
Solitude
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 2:12 a.m.
Interesteda2, it could not possibly matter less why she went to risk management. She should have gone to the police, or ensured the resident went to the police. There are no reasons that can be offered that make not contacting the police immediately ok. "From Boothman to the police was 7 days." Again, so what? From the time she was informed until she went to Boothman was SIX MONTHS.
interesteda2
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 8 p.m.
Dr Andreae went to Rick Boothman not because he was "Risk Management" and she was concerned about liability but because he is an attorney associated with the hospital and not part of the attorney office that originally dropped the ball. Doctors in the hospital work with Risk Management quite a lot and know that the attorneys there would handle the problem or refer it to the appropriate person. Risk management and Boothman have developed the concept of admitting malpractice, apologizing and settling as soon as a problem arises; quite the opposite of burying or hiding a problem. From Boothman to the police was 7 days.
Giarc
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:48 p.m.
Can anyone say ... cover up?
ant
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:30 p.m.
According to the State Bar of Michigan's website, a lawyer named Susan Balkema now works in the Office of the [Ann Arbor] City Attorney. Here's the link: http://www.michbar.org/memberdirectory/detail.cfm?PID=66494.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:47 p.m.
ant - I saw that too. I called the city attorney's office and went through the directory and there was no contact information for Susan Balkema in the telephone directory. I also tried to send an email to an email address that would have been associated with her (following the city's email formula) and it bounced back to me.
Kai Petainen
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:25 p.m.
Problems with communication, security and the hospital area existed before this incident. And yes, I can show 1 case where there was lousy communication (conflicting reports), a weak investigation (experts weren't consulted), an unsolved 'crime' and contradicting reports in the hospital area (the security reports contradicted the AAFD reports). I was trying to shout out problems back then -- to deaf ears. The bad news is, is that a serious event like this happened before corrections were made to the system. The good news is, is that corrections appear to have been made -- like the formation of the DPSS.
Kai Petainen
Sat, May 4, 2013 : 12:16 p.m.
The oil, phosphoric acid spill (aafd report) that flowed under the hospital area for hours into the Huron river and covered it. The police and aafd reports contradict one another.
81Viking
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 8:02 p.m.
Kai, what is the case to which you are referring?
Solitude
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:56 p.m.
How does the formation of another layer of bureaucracy solve the problem? Putting security and the real police under one administrative umbrella does not automatically mean the operating sphere of either entity is now somehow magically connected to the other, or that the communication and cooperation that did not exist before is magically created.
JRW
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:53 p.m.
"If you're looking at the aspect of how this was handled in the hospital legal office, it was mishandled largely by one employee. I don't think it's fair to say there was something wrong with the legal office." The employee represents the office, so yes, there was something wrong with the legal office that allowed this to happen. Is this attorney still employed at UM?
Solitude
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:34 p.m.
It's interesting that the hospital claims her "departure" wasn't related, yet more than one hospital employee is quoted in the reports and the article as saying she was fired over this situation. It's obvious that the university's strategy is to continue to lie and obfuscate. The administration has zero credibility at this point.
Cindy Heflin
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:59 p.m.
As the article notes, the attorney does not still work for the university. U-M has said her departure was not related to the Jenson case.
The Kingpin
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:29 p.m.
This article makes me feel ashamed to work for the U of M. Sad...
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:27 p.m.
Thank you all very much for the kind words on this story. There was a lot of records to go through in this case and it took some time, but I'm glad you all (or at least some) took the time to read it - I know it's a little bit longer than what you'll usually see in news media.
David Cahill
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:19 p.m.
I sense a journalism award for this article in the future.
kris
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:23 p.m.
Kyle: don't apologize for the length...people can choose to read or not. I will weigh in that I really appreciate this type of investigative report and only hope to read more like it in the future. Please keep up the excellent work!
Mercutio
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:37 p.m.
Kyle, this is very good investigative journalism, the kind of thing readers like me like to see in local news. Too often lately, annarbor.com runs stories and reporting that are not thorough or well-written. This article, while excellent on its own merit, stands out even more when compared to what us readers frequently see from the former Ann Arbor News. Nice job, and thanks for keeping the torch burning!
JRW
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:54 p.m.
Excellent reporting and story!
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:32 p.m.
Kyle- I hope that you will put pressure on the University to release the report of the external investigation. There must be a whole lot more information in the actual report than in the memo the Regents wrote in response to the report. No incumbent Regent should be re-elected until that report is released.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:54 p.m.
One of the recommendations of the report from Margolis Healy was that the new department should have an advisory committee composed of representatives of the constituents served. All members of that committee are VP's and the Provost. That is what is wrong with letting the University have its own police department, they think the police are there to serve the administation. Where are the representatives of the patients & public, the faculty, staff and students?
rs
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:42 p.m.
wow - actual investigative journalism at annarbor.com. Good Job!!!
Laurie Barrett
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:01 p.m.
Agreed--nice when the News does something in-depth!
Paula Gardner
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:44 p.m.
It's actually not the first time. But thanks!
Mercutio
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:37 p.m.
"University officials have not released a $487,000 report done into the case." I'm not trying to minimize how monumentally screwed up this situation is, but how do you spend half a million dollars on just the report figuring out what you did wrong? As a taxpayer that's what I want to know, where's the oversight of that? Is that just another sign of how inept the hospital administration is?
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:29 p.m.
BTW- the final cost of the report is $553,000 and the Margolis Healy report was another $120,000.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:28 p.m.
Kyle- I don't know what you mean by "sealed". Sealed usually refers to an order of the court. The report is being kept secret from FOIA requests by the Regents' claim of attorney client privilege. The privilege belongs to the Regents and can be waived any time they chose to do so. I think the AA.com editorial staff out to publish an editorial demanding the release of the report.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 3:35 p.m.
According to my colleague, Kellie Woodhouse, the findings of that report are sealed. It would be very nice to get a chance to look at everything that was in there but we'll have to wait to see if it gets unsealed.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:31 p.m.
Kyle, you also missed the fact that there had been a previous complaint against Dr. Jenson. It was not a criminal complaint but about 6 months before the discovery of the child pornography, Dr. Jenson performed a genital examination on two girls, ages 5 & 12, without the supervision of his faculty supervisor. This meant that the girls had to be examined a second time, which made their father angry and he complained. The supervising physician said that any third year resident should know better. This raised the question of whether or not the hospital informed this father or any of Dr. Jenson's other patients about the child pornography and whether they did any kind of adequate investigation of whether or not their had been any inappropriate conduct with patients. Again, with the final report being secret we will never know.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:14 p.m.
Kyle- Read the narrative supplement from 1/31/12 by Detective Pillsbury, "On 12/22/11, OGC Martha Boonstra contacted me and inquired about whether DPS would want information about a prior complaint involving Jenson. Boonstra relayed that while Risk Management Rick Boothman was checking with supervisors of Jenson's to inquire about any prior unreported concerns he learned of a complaint made by a patient's parent" "The attending , Dr. Neal Blatt had to conduct a second examination because he was not present with Jenson"..."Blatt's complaint was that a thrid year resident clearly knows that they should not have conducted the examination without a chapherone, such as the attending doctor present." The point is, did the university investigate properly whether or not there was any inappropriate behavior. How about posting the documents so the public can read them and make up their own minds.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:45 p.m.
trespass - The information I have in the report states that the complaint was made because there was no supervising physician in the room when Dr. Jenson made this examination. From what the records showed, the complaint stated that the girls' father was present in the examination room during the exam. The records I have stated the girls' father did not make the complaint. There was no allegation of inappropriate touching against Jenson and throughout court proceedings it's been said that there has been no allegations of inappropriate touching against Jenson. That's why I didn't include this information in the report. I have no information stating that the girls had to be examined a second time.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:17 p.m.
I have had the same records for weeks but the news media has not been interested in publishing them. I wonder why AA.com is doing so now. "I had previously experienced the Office of Clinical Affairs shutting down investigations I was working on which were related to doctors. This was the first time I had ever been instructed by OGC to stop an investigation," Wells said in the report. This is a critical statement because it indicates that stopping criminal investigations in the hospital was an ongoing policy. Since the University is keeping the facts secret under attorney client privelge, how can we trust anything that Rick Fitzgerald says about it not being true.
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:51 p.m.
trespass - I received this report in the early part of April. Unfortunately, with a report of this length it takes time to sit down and go through it with the amount of discretion required in this kind of incident. In addition, I wanted to give the university time to respond to what I found in the report in order to give the story balance. It also took time to find the space and the right time to run this story in our print edition. All of those things together contributed to why we published this story when we did.
Cindy Heflin
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:36 p.m.
We realize members of the public also look for documents. We sought these under the Freedom of Information Act and believe the reporting about them helps the public understand what happened. The documents on which this story is based represent a portion of the documents AnnArbor.com has obtained since the news about this case broke.
Brian Carlson
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:09 p.m.
Another divine act of an attorney likely tied to the ACLU or Southern Poverty League to downgrade our society. You wonder why attorney's have a reputation of scum. They are all for themselves and not others.
liekkio
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:21 p.m.
A CORPORATE attorney "tied to the ACLU or Southern Poverty League"? Dream on.
RuralMom
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:07 p.m.
Sure blame the new person, not the system that had no oversight to prevent ONE PERSON from having this kind of authority or judgement call! This just further reeks of pathetic excuses by all who knew about this from the jump and failed to act on it.
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:45 p.m.
Does dialing 911 at the university hospital still connect you to "security" instead of the police?
napoleonrisen
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 4:48 a.m.
My mistake, I read somewhere on here about the medical emergency calls maybe it was a comment or another article.
napoleonrisen
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 4:33 a.m.
EVERY 911 call should not go to a police department especially in a health system environment when the overwhelming majority are in house medical emergencies as was mentioned in the article. You put lives at risk by letting someone answer who is not familar with that environment. 911 had nothing to do with this. I am sure the health system did not just decide one day to do 911, I would think it would have been signed off on by the police and Washtenaw County, don't you? The invented 911 drama was brought up by a regent who may have been fed information from someone who saw an opportunity. Everything is not black and white as some commentators on here would want you to believe.
Solitude
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:12 p.m.
Sorry LAEL, but that is absolutely false. EVERY 911 call should be directly routed to the appropriate, official, emergency services dispatch center for the jurisdiction; in this case, whomever dispatches for UofM PD. If a local security unit is also going to respond, then a protocol can be established whereby the dispatch center notifies the security dept. any time the real police are dispatched to a property that security department monitors. Any other set up risks lives and invites trouble.
LAEL
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:52 p.m.
It should. Hospital security can be anywhere in the hopsital in a few minutes. An outside police force would have to drive there first and they won't necessarily know their way around that very large complex.
kmgeb2000
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:45 p.m.
"Fitzgerald said officials are working every day to make sure an incident like the one involving Jenson doesn't happen again." A component of this thinking was a part of the problem in the first place. That is protecting image, reputation, and lets face it revenue over doing what is right (not for the University or the hospital but those in harms way). After a mere two years, are we somehow to believe that they are now less concerned with image, reputation and revenue - hardly. The dollar amounts only increase with time, and coorespondingly so do the pressures to protect image, reputation and the ever increasing revenue stream. Thereby reinforcing the incentive to protecting image, reputation and revenue over doing what is right. As with most events, the byproduct of the root cause of the problem will likely not manifest itself in the same fashion (Resident with child pornography) the next time. Hopefully, what they have in place allows for enough eyes to see an issue so as to not put protection the University first and foremost.
Laurie Barrett
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:39 p.m.
These events are less a surprise than typical at the UM hospital. The emperor wears a lovely suit of clothes from the bottom of the system to the top. It's the ethos, based I think on an outdated system of management. I hope the hospital looks for a new administrative identity. As change becomes necessary for the hospital industry in general, may UMH develop a more honest, professional approach.
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:37 p.m.
"After Balkema told the resident the investigation was complete in June, nothing happened until Tarini and Andreae began discussing the case again after former Penn State University defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky hit the news." This just confirms the obviousness and what many of us commented here (and some of those comments were removed!) - that this cover-up only came to light because of the Penn St. fiasco.
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:35 p.m.
Thanks for following up on this, Kyle! Excellent digging and reporting!
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:34 p.m.
If the University president, Mary Sue Coleman, and the regeants wanted to be open about this, and truly wanted to move forward, then they would have released the report findings that are now being kept secret via attorney-client privilege.
Arborcomment
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:58 p.m.
It appears all I can give you is a thumbs up Nicholas. Any speculation as to why it needs to be kept in ACP is deleted.
SEC Fan
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:34 p.m.
Great job, Kyle, on bringing us this story! "If you're looking at the aspect of how this was handled in the hospital legal office, it was mishandled largely by one employee. I don't think it's fair to say there was something wrong with the legal office." "Many of the processes that led to the six-month lapse between the original discovery of the child pornography on May 23, 2011, and the eventual report to police on Nov. 18, 2011, have been fixed, university officials said." "The statements Wells made in the police interview may not have been accurate, given the context of the interview, Fitzgerald said "We took full responsibility right from the beginning that this wasn't handled properly," he said. " We've made tremendous progress moving forward over the last two years." Gotta say, that's not my definition of taking "responsibility"...
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:32 p.m.
Why weren't the attornies who "shut down" the investigation terminated from the university? In the story they are named as Balkema and Daudi.
Evan Smith
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:35 p.m.
"Balkema and Daudi no longer work for the university"
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:30 p.m.
"I had previously experienced the Office of Clinical Affairs shutting down investigations I was working on which were related to doctors." There is never just one roach. What's the story on those other investigations that were "shut down"?
Soothslayer
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:18 p.m.
UM does what it wants, when it wants to. We allow this.
David Cahill
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:06 p.m.
As a lawyer myself, I am deeply disturbed about the reported conduct of the University's lawyers. Lawyers are seen by many others as authority figures, but we are not. Lawyers only give advice; they are not allowed to give orders. Lawyers recommend; the client decides. So a lawyer exceeds his/her authority by purporting to order somebody to do or not do something. Also, it is up to the client, not the lawyer, to decide what is privileged. In legalese, "the attorney-client privilege is the property of the client." In addition, Michigan takes a "hands-off" position with regard to slander in the employment context. Our courts do not recognize slander claims in that context. All too often lawyers abuse their limited authority and bully laypeople into doing what the lawyers want. Lawyers in large organizations must be watched. Carefully.
lorayn54
Sat, May 4, 2013 : 12:05 a.m.
and in this case the client is... the UM?
liekkio
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:23 p.m.
" Lawyers only give advice; they are not allowed to give orders. Lawyers recommend; the client decides" "Lawyers in large organizations must be watched". If it is the client who decides, shouldn't the client be watched?
mady
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:57 p.m.
David, I totally agree. any lawyer who, in essence, protects a pedophile should be disbarred!
Jim Mulchay
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 12:41 p.m.
A problem with all bureaucracies - when to delegate, how much to delegate and how to still be responsible for the result. In my opinion, you can delegate work, you cannot delegate responsibility. "The attorneys in our office are free to open and close matters without consulting me," Marchak told police. "It is expected that the work we do will be documented, but there is not a policy or procedure in place currently to assure that happens."
Paula Gardner
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 12:17 p.m.
Thank you for the encouraging comments here. I agree that Kyle did a good job presenting this story. It unfolded in so many increments that we thought it would be valuable for readers to see the overall picture of how UM handled it and how it both reached prosecution - and forced changed in administrative structure at the university.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 8:51 p.m.
Paula- It may have forced some change to the police/security structure but the way the changes are being made will ensure that the police have less independence not more (the search committee and advisory committees are all populated with high administrators, no representatives of faculty, staff, students or public). Also, the people who drive the policies of cover up were not the lawyers who left. The policy makers are still there and they have hired new attorneys. Hiring new attorneys will not change anything.
Ricardo Queso
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 4:27 p.m.
Give Mr. Feldscher a raise and ensure we can continue to enjoy his reports.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:48 p.m.
Yeah, except I have had the documents for weeks and AA.com wasn't interested.
Ricebrnr
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:34 p.m.
As a frequent commentor regarding the quality of reporting on this site, credit where credit is due. A well-written, extensively researched true journalistic work. Thank you for the breath of fresh air. More like this and we might subscribe again.
Dirty Mouth
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 12:10 p.m.
Investigative Journalism. Bravo! Gosh, I keep thinking about the victims.
mady
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:55 p.m.
I know. God, Please heal those poor children!
Huron74
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 12:10 p.m.
The repeated screw ups of the medical center's Rube Goldberg security bureaucracy would actually be funny if it weren't so serious a matter. The discoverer of the thumb drive should have delivered it, by hand, to the Ann Arbor Police, a real, actual, POLICE AGENCY which is staffed by professionals that knew how to investigate these matters and not to the University's department of parking cops, security guards, and paper shufflers. Instead the bureaucracy hands this off to a "loss prevention temporary investigator" as if it were someone pilfering toilet paper from the store room or something. University bureaucrats just want stuff like this to go away without any adverse publicity. This is how people like Jenson and Sandusky skate for so long.
81Viking
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 7:56 p.m.
You are correct. They go to Hospital Security, because less than 1% of all 911 calls in the hospital are incidents requiring the police. 99.9% are medical calls which are handled internally. If the woman had called 911, the call would have immediately been transferred to UMPD.
Nicholas Urfe
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:43 p.m.
Dialing 911 in the Umich hospital does not get you the police. It connects you hospital security. This wasn't a slip up, it has every indication of being an as-designed culture of control and secrecy. The women who reported it was intimidated by university attornies to the point of tears. This has every appearance of a real cover-up. Whistle-blowers are often punished. Sometimes people who report things get targeted as a suspect. It is something that often hurts a career. For someone who has made the investment to become a doctor, any association with an episode like this could be ruinous. So yeah, go ahead and blame the person who reported it, twice, instead of the university officials who supported a cover-up culture. A culture where nobody was fired except the guy convicted.
81Viking
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:09 p.m.
The UMPD is a real police agency and is competent to handle these types of investigations. The thumb drive was never handed over to UMPD or Hospital Security, so how can you blame them? It seems you have a lot of resentment against these departments for some reason, but calling them "parking cops" and "security guards" doesn't solve anything. Also, the case was not handed off to a temporary investigator. It was given to a Lieutenant who led the Hospital's Loss Prevention Unit, and whose investigation was shut down by someone in the legal office.
SonnyDog09
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 11:17 a.m.
"If you're looking at the aspect of how this was handled in the hospital legal office, it was mishandled largely by one employee. I don't think it's fair to say there was something wrong with the legal office." If one employee could screw this up, then there is a problem with the legal office. Whether it is process or culture or whatever, the legal office failed. Unless that is fixed, simply sacking the lawyer does not fix the problems in the legal office.
Brad
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1 p.m.
The old "rogue employee" defense.
Tom Joad
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 11:10 a.m.
It's incomprehensible and unconscionable that the resident who discovered the memory drive did not immediately turn it over to UM Police. A physician has a legal duty to report any suspected child abuse or neglect in the performance of his or her professional duties. Cover-up by omission began with her. The evidence was spirited away and could have been completely destroyed had Dr. Jensen thought that someone else might have viewed the photographs after forgetting to remove it from the USB drive.
lorayn54
Fri, May 3, 2013 : 11:59 p.m.
my understanding (as a UM employee) is that after the fiasco and mishandeling of the Sandusky case there has been a move in higher education to reconsider how we handle these things. We all got an email last fall, in response to the Penn State case, the we should not hesitate to report suspicious incidents such as this one.
Judy
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 6:14 p.m.
Well what this has taught me is tell your boss, keep the UBS drive and give your boss 24 hours before going to the police.
81Viking
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:50 p.m.
So in fact what you are saying is don't report a crime, or possible crime, to the police. Just report it to your boss to protect yourselves. THAT sounds like a cover up to me.
easy123
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:50 p.m.
Could have , would have, should have! We can all be arm chair quarterbacks!There are quite a few worse incidents in Detroit that be taken on as well by the "pundits". Have others that can also be taken on - Benghazi, the Mexican slaves held as prostitutes in NJ. etc
lumberg48108
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:38 p.m.
I guess you have to paint me in the color of "I would not have called the police, I would have told my boss." I would argue their duty/obligation was met when the info was passed on to the brass Why? If you work for a HUGE organization and call the police and your boss is the last to know, it just seems like a lack of chain of command and people look bad and your org looks bad and then his boss does not know and so on .. so if she called right away and the story hit the press within hours there is a chance the brass were in the dark about this...and soon Mary Sue is reading or watching this on the news and no one knows what is going on... (for this point, remove who did the right or wrong thing and focus on my point) There was no immediate danger. No lives were at immediate risk. Passing this information to your superiors was appropriate - and let them start the process
81Viking
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:01 p.m.
Thank you! I don't understand why people don't see this. That woman was made out to be a hero when in fact she never did the proper thing.
Boo Radley
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:48 a.m.
Very good article, Mr. Feldscher
a2citizen
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:48 a.m.
Hopefully, a discussion on disbarment is in balkema's future.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:46 p.m.
a2citizen- just 7 days after she met with Dr. Tarini. I would tell you more but the moderator would remove my comment.
a2citizen
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 8 p.m.
From the article: "...Andreae told Tarini that Balkema was fired soon after she made the decision to stop investigating Jenson..."
Judy
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 5:58 p.m.
Attorney Grievance Commission is a JOKE! Attorneys policing attorneys in the good old boy club. She will totally get away with it and than run for a public office.
trespass
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:43 p.m.
The University did not fire her and did not report her to the Attorney Grievance Commission. Perhaps someone else in the legal community should make a complaint.
Carole
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:43 a.m.
All disgusting -- it should have been reported by the first individual who found out he was doing it. And, for sure the attorney. Maybe they should be fired for not doing their job.
81Viking
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:47 p.m.
I don't need to re-read it. I know what happened.
LAEL
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 1:15 p.m.
Re-read the article. She spoke to her advisor and was eventually directed to hospital attorneys and Hospital Security. She spoke to a security supervisor, who then contacted UM Police.
81Viking
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 12:59 p.m.
She didn't report it to the POLICE, or Hospital Security Dispatch. Instead, she went through other channels that were not appropriate.
seldon
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 11:46 a.m.
Did you actually read the article? The first person who saw the photos (the resident) reported it, and the attorney who led the investigation hasn't worked for the university since before this came out.
aaparent
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:25 a.m.
Why did the pediatric department physicians who the residents contacted let the department chair, Val Castle, know about this sooner? Am I understanding the report correctly that she was not informed about the incident at the same time as security? It might be helpful to include a bullet point time line in the article. Did the action start to take a more appropriate pace and path once the department chair (similar to a principal of a school building) was informed and then could inform her supervisors? This is very disappointing to stay the least at all levels of UMHS and in the legal office and in security that people are considering it optional to persist on something this serious. Does medical school training or residency training include education to physicians about their duty to report? If it is, how much time is spent on this relative to other topics. Good job A2.com for getting the FOIA done on this.
liekkio
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:24 p.m.
How do you know they didn't?
Cindy Heflin
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 2:20 p.m.
Thanks aaparent. We did link to a timeline in this story and added one within the text of the article earlier this morning
aaparent
Thu, May 2, 2013 : 10:26 a.m.
Should have said: Why did the pediatric department physicians who the residents contacted NOT let the department chair, Val Castle, know about this sooner?