7/23/2008 3:13:00 PM Brown's son in fraud probe LAPD ‘flooded’ with calls about Kevin Brown’s alleged wrongdoing
Undercover probe: A policewoman posing as a patient attended Kevin Brown’s clinic in this building in the West Adams District of Los Angeles. The policewoman says she was sexually
assaulted. A “high number” of women have since come forward to say they fell victim to Dr. Brown, according to LA’s Deputy District Attorney. *Photo by Christina House
Prosecutors are preparing to press more sex charges against Dr. Ewart Brown's eldest son after police were "flooded" with calls from alleged victims.
It also emerged yesterday that detectives are investigating Kevin Antario Brown, 37, for his alleged part in a multi-million dollar healthcare fraud and for allegedly over-prescribing painkillers.
Kevin Brown was originally charged with molesting an 18-year-old woman, along with a sexual assault on a policewoman who was posing as a patient. Following media coverage, a further six patients came forward to say they had been assaulted. Dr. Brown was charged with a total of 19 counts, including rape, performing a lewd act on a 15-year-old child, sexual battery by fraud and sexual exploitation. He is being held on $4 million bail.
More patients have now come forward to say they were assaulted, prosecutors said yesterday. They have also been contacted by other law enforcement agencies, who say they are investigating Dr. Brown for other, separate crimes. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Ann Marie Wise, of the sex crimes division, said: "Since we filed the charges, we have been flooded with phone calls, both from other alleged victims and from other agencies, saying: 'By the way, we are looking at him for this.'"
She told the Bermuda Sun that a "high-number" of women had come forward offering testimony against Dr. Brown, some of them alleging sex crimes as far back as 15 years ago. She said: "We were certainly expecting additional women to come forward, but the number has been probably higher than we would usually expect in this sort of investigation. We didn't want to rush and file all of them [alleged victims] all at once. We have finished interviewing some of the women, and others have come forward in the past two days and we haven't spoken to them yet."
She said that she expected still more women to come forward following growing media coverage in the U.S. She said: "In America we attach a great deal of confidence and respect in our doctors. Women often have to see that someone else has stood up and said something before they will come forward."
Unproven allegations
Dr. Kevin Brown has not been found guilty of any offence and at this stage the charges and allegations are just that - unproven allegations or suspicions of wrongdoing.
Ms Wise said that her department learned from Bermuda media that Dr. Brown was the son of Premier Ewart Brown. That knowledge prompted prosecutors to lay the fresh charges - and ask for an unusually large bail - because of a fear that he might try to flee to Bermuda. The offences he has been charged with reportedly occurred between November 6, 2006, and May 31, 2008, and allegedly took place at Dr. Brown's medical centre in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, an affidavit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court says that Dr. Brown is being investigated for allegedly over-prescribing the opiate painkiller Oxycodone. "He has not been charged in connection with that inquiry," the paper says.
Investigators are also probing Dr. Brown's alleged role in a multi-million dollar medical fraud, the affidavit says. In recent years, doctors have been convicted of making fraudulent claims to Medi-Cal and Medi-Care - two bodies set up to provide medical aid to the poor. Special Agent J. Timothy Fives, of the Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse unit in the California Attorney General's Office, said that during a raid on another doctor's home in October, investigators obtained a list of those allegedly involved in the fraud. Dr. Brown's name was on the list, Mr. Fives said.
Mr. Fives says that doctors already convicted of fraud have told him that Dr. Brown recruited them into the scheme. Mr. Fives added: "Physicians have stated during interviews that they paid Dr. Brown a percentage of their income from fraudulent Medi-Cal and Medi-Care claims in payment for him setting them up in business."
On top of his work as a doctor, Dr. Brown runs the Urban Health Institute, a charity set up to provide disaster relief in the U.S., Africa and elsewhere. The charity attracted controversy earlier this year when it was revealed Premier Ewart Brown used taxpayers' funds to help sponsor a party thrown to benefit the charity. The Premier was a guest of his son at the charity poker event, held at the Playboy Mansion in L.A.
