Malvin Roy Weisberg operated Medical Analytic Laboratories in Santa Monica from 1976 until March 1981. A significant part of the business of these laboratories was to conduct pathology exams on the bodies of unborn babies from clinics in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

A May 1983 Associated Press story pointed out that Weisberg’s laboratories  at one point received nearly $175,000 in Medi-Cal payments, with $88,000 coming from pathology tests on aborted fetuses. Of this, half of it ($44,000) was paid federally through the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By the Hyde Amendment, this money was ineligible for testing on pre-abortion or post-abortion tissue, which meant the state of California would need to pay back federal funds claimed by Weisberg and by any other laboratories.

Weisberg was not a medical doctor; to do the exams he hired Milo Allado, a pathologist from the Philippines who had been a physician for the U.S. military. Allado’s name was on the paperwork found in Weisberg’s sea/land container that held the 16,433 unborn baby bodies discovered accidentally in February of 1982.

This accidental discovery occurred because Weisberg (33 years old at the time) had neglected to make timely payments on the container he was purchasing from the Martin Container company in Wilmington. Weisberg had been keeping the aborted baby bodies at his Santa Monica office, but in 1980 there were complaints about the sight and smell of so many bodies, and Weisberg ordered the container to be delivered to his Woodland Hills home. (The first check for $1700 bounced.)

Weisberg’s home on Califa Street in the Woodland Hills Country Club sat next to a flag lot, a piece of property with a long driveway that led to larger lot off the street. In back of Weisberg’s house there were tennis courts. Next to the tennis courts, on the vacant flag lot sat the large (20’x8’x8’) steel container before it was re-possessed.

After a short item appeared in the LA Times about the discovery of the bodies, two pro-lifers visited the Weisberg home in February 1982. Mrs. Weisberg appeared at the front gate in tennis clothes, accompanied by another female. Mrs. Weisberg seemed to acknowledge the existence of the bodies, but at that point her female companion encouraged her to return to the house. The only other testimony to the grisly incident was a neighbor boy, who told the visitors that his parents would not let his sister play with the Weisberg children at their house, because there were “babies’ bodies” stored in a garage there.

Why was Weisberg keeping so many bodies of unborn babies?

To cut back on smog, the Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District had strict rules by the late 1970s  limiting on-site incineration in the L.A. Basin. So disposing of human bodies was going to mean burying in the L.A. area or shipping somewhere out of the area – costs Weisberg was apparently not willing to bear.

And there was little chance to make money from the sale of the bodies. Since the bodies were kept in formaldehyde, they could not be used for research or for other uses.

All that is known for certain is that the bodies accumulated on the Woodland Hills property.

Why was Weisberg not prosecuted or made to pay for the Medi-Cal missing money?

Health and Human Services inspector Richard Kusserow stated “prior to its closing in April 1981, [Medical Analytical Laboratories] had routinely submitted questionable billings under the Medi-Cal program, using an erroneous billing code…. the case lacked criminal prosecutive merit due to a lack of proof that the false billings were intentional. Because the laboratory was out of business, and its owner had declared bankruptcy, there were no assets against which to proceed for civil recovery.”

Second of six-part series from 2012. Subsequent parts to be published June 6,  June 13, June 20, June 27.

Read first installment of this series from May 23.

Watch video on the Weisberg Incident.