Nurse Gets 9 Years in Bid to Kill AIDS Patient

A nurse who tried to kill an AIDS patient with an overdose of insulin, then looted the man’s bank accounts, was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday by a Superior Court judge in Santa Monica.

Hal Speers Rachman, 41, of Venice had pleaded no contest to attempted murder charges stemming from a telephone call he made to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica in which he impersonated a doctor and ordered an insulin injection for Edward S. Lebowitz.

Lebowitz, a patient being treated for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, lapsed into a coma following the injection. He died four days later, on Sept. 24, 1986.

Meanwhile, Rachman used credit cards that he apparently took from Lebowitz’s wallet while working a one-day stint as the patient’s home nurse to withdraw $32,000 from Lebowitz’s bank accounts.

Rachman, who appeared without an attorney at the sentencing, has maintained that Lebowitz gave him power of attorney over his finances, an argument that prosecutors dismissed as “making no sense.”

Before sentencing, Rachman told Judge Laurence J. Rittenband: “Your honor, I am sorry about anything I did concerning Mr. Lebowitz that caused him to leave this life in less than the dignified station that should have been accorded him his dying day.

“I essentially have been called a foolish man,” Rachman continued in a calm, measured 20-minute statement. “I don’t feel I have been called a murderer or a thief (but) a man who tries very hard not to say no to someone who asks me to do something.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard de la Sota said Rachman simply “regrets being caught. . . . I don’t think he’s a hardened criminal, but he saw an opportunity and he took it.”

“If there was a power of attorney, there would have been no need for (Rachman) to go to a number of different banks and car agencies and pose as the victim,” De la Sota said.

Rachman pleaded no contest July 18 to attempted murder and five counts of forgery. Monday’s sentence conforms to a plea-bargain agreement with prosecutors, in which grand theft and other forgery charges were dismissed.

Coroners have determined that the insulin ordered by Rachman did not cause the death of Lebowitz, a 49-year-old attorney and vice president of the William Morris Agency Inc., a Beverly Hills talent agency.

De la Sota said he took into account Rachman’s clean record and job performance in recommending a sentence but added, “It was a serious crime involving a person who was particularly vulnerable. He violated a position of trust.”