Bad City

July 25, 2022
Los Angeles Times reporter Pringle debuts with an in-depth and often riveting account of sexual misconduct, drug abuse, corruption, and cover-ups in Southern California. Expanding on a story he broke in 2017, Pringle recounts how a Pasadena hotel manager’s dogged efforts to get someone to investigate what happened to a young woman who overdosed on crystal meth in the hotel room of Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the dean of the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, led to Puliafito’s resignation and the uncovering of decades of sexual abuse committed by George Tyndall, a gynecologist in USC’s student health clinic. Throughout, Pringle draws detailed and sympathetic portraits of the victims in both cases, including Sarah Warren, the woman who overdosed in Puliafito’s hotel room after meeting him through the website Backpage.com and becoming his “round-the-clock sugar baby,” and recounts in meticulous detail USC’s efforts to cover up the crimes. Part of these efforts included pressuring the leadership of the Los Angeles Times to kill the Puliafito story, and Pringle doesn’t hold back in criticizing how the newspaper’s executives allowed themselves to be compromised by moneyed interests in Southern California. It’s a crisp tale of institutional rot, dogged journalism, and heroic whistleblowing. Readers will be on the edge of their seats.

June 10, 2024

In April 2016, L.A. Times investigative reporter Pringle received a tip about an overdose at an upscale Pasadena hotel. This tip set off a chain of events that rattled the upper echelons of leadership at the University of Southern California and at the Times itself. Pringle found that Carmen Puliafito, dean of the USC medical school, was providing drugs to a troubled young woman in exchange for sex. Stonewalled by USC leadership, Pringle doggedly pursued the story, much to the chagrin of his employers, who seemed beholden to the wealthy and powerful, rather than to the truth. But the Puliafito story is merely the tip of the USC iceberg; Pringle and his colleagues also break the story of a sexually abusive gynecologist who worked and preyed on young women at the USC student health center for decades. Robert Petkoff's skilled narration is straightforward and engaging, with frequent inflections suggesting incredulity and disgust at both the appalling behaviors of the men being investigated and Pringle's editors at the paper. VERDICT This inside look at investigative reporting at a major U.S. newspaper will appeal to listeners with an interest in journalism, as well as fans of true crime podcasts that focus on criminal investigations.--Nanette Donohue

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