Saldivar Enters Not-Guilty Plea in Deaths of Patients at Hospital

In a brief appearance in a downtown courtroom, former respiratory therapist Efren Saldivar pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he killed six elderly patients at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

Prosecutors allege that Saldivar, 31, of Tujunga injected the patients with lethal doses of the paralyzing drug Pavulon between December 1996 and August 1997. In 1998, Saldivar told police he had killed as many as 50 patients with paralyzing drugs, but he later recanted his confession. He was arrested last month on the basis of evidence discovered through the exhumation of the bodies of 20 patients who died at the hospital.

At the court hearing, Los Angeles County Deputy Public Defender Verah Bradford entered the not guilty plea for her client. Saldivar, dressed in black slacks, a green sweater and an untucked dress shirt, shuffled into the courtroom from a holding cell. Superior Court Judge Michael K. Kellogg allowed Saldivar to appear in civilian clothing as a compromise between attorneys for local media outlets and Bradford, who had expressed a concern that photos and TV images of Saldivar in his prison clothes would lend an unfair perception of guilt.

Kellogg said that a ruling he made to allow cameras in court applied only to Friday’s hearing, and that future judges in the case could make their own decisions on camera coverage.

As Saldivar sat at the defense table, Bradford gave him a pair of glasses, saying that her client had not been allowed to wear them since his Jan. 9 arrest. Saldivar nodded repeatedly and nervously as Kellogg set the next court date for March 30, when attorneys will set a date for a discovery hearing. Saldivar’s only words were a soft “Yes, I do,” when the judge asked him if he understood his rights.

Bradford also entered a plea of not guilty for Saldivar on a count of receiving stolen property--the muscle-relaxing drug Versed that police found in his house.

After the hearing, Bradford said she was glad the criminal case was underway, with a judge--not public opinion--presiding. For nearly three years, Saldivar’s confession constituted “a human interest story of some sort,” she said.

Now, she added, “the search for the truth will be in the courtroom.”