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Speaker 1: Content warning.

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Speaker 2: This episode features topics related to sexual assault and abuse.

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Speaker 2: For those in search of help, there are resources in

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Speaker 2: our show notes for today's episode.

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Speaker 3: We're always going to have predators, but it's the good

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Speaker 3: people who stand by and do nothing that allow them

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Speaker 3: to flourish, and that's certainly what happened here.

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Speaker 2: Audrey Nafsinger is a top sex crimes prosecutor for the

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Speaker 2: DA's office in Ventura County, California. But in nineteen ninety,

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Speaker 2: she was a twenty three year old law student at USC.

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Speaker 2: During a visit to the Student Health Center on campus,

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Speaker 2: Audrey was sexually assaulted by doctor George Tindall, a kyn

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Speaker 2: ofcologist who worked there and for more than twenty five years.

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Speaker 2: Tindall continued to pray on USC students while on the payroll.

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Speaker 3: I'm one of the first people that saw him. I'm

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Speaker 3: sure he perfected his craft over time, but I was

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Speaker 3: young and naive, and I trusted him.

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Speaker 2: It's February twenty eighteen, six months since we published the

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Speaker 2: blockbuster story about Carmen Pulliafido, former dean of the Medical

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Speaker 2: School at USC. We're still deep into our reporting on

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Speaker 2: Pulliafido's involvement in the death of Dori Yoder's baby. When

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Speaker 2: reporter Harriet Ryan gets an anonymous tip urged her to

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Speaker 2: look into a quote creepy kinnecologist, Harriet and Matt Hamilton

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Speaker 2: start to dig.

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Speaker 4: You're so like desperate for any kind of information. Everybody

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Speaker 4: had their own perspective, and usually at the end that

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Speaker 4: person would say, you should also talk to this other

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Speaker 4: woman or this other man, but don't tell them that

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Speaker 4: he talked to me.

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Speaker 2: Slowly, but surely, over months, we start to catch some breaks.

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Speaker 2: We speak the low level employees of the clinic who

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Speaker 2: decide to risk their jobs to give us a scrap

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Speaker 2: of information on Tyndall. We find survivors and ex staffers

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Speaker 2: who have spent years feeling guilty for not doing more.

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Speaker 2: We tracked down administrators who knew there were complaints about Tindall,

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Speaker 2: and we find the nurse who put everything on the

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Speaker 2: line to take Tyndall down. What we learned is horrific

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Speaker 2: and not just Tyndall's crimes. Again, like with Puliaffido, we

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Speaker 2: discover that USC just.

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Speaker 1: Let it happen.

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Speaker 2: This is Fallen Angels, Episode nine, The Golden Handshake. For

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Speaker 2: the next four months, we knock on doors and gather leads,

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Speaker 2: and we begin to see the patterns. Tindall clearly had

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Speaker 2: an mo one after another. Women share their stories with us,

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Speaker 2: and even though they span decades, a lot of the

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Speaker 2: details start to sound familiar.

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Speaker 4: One of the key things is that he was making

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Speaker 4: the same comments to woman after women, which was he

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Speaker 4: was saying like, oh, you're so tight, you must be

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Speaker 4: a runner. And he was doing ungloved exams like he

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Speaker 4: was making the women who came in like have these

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Speaker 4: long discussions with him in his office with the door close.

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Speaker 4: A lot of them are like Asian international students. He

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Speaker 4: would like show them a picture of his young Asian wife,

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Speaker 4: and he had a map of China and to point

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Speaker 4: out where they were from.

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Speaker 1: Here's Audrey Nasseger again.

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Speaker 3: He pulled out a camera and had me hold my

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Speaker 3: body parts in certain positions so he could take pictures

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Speaker 3: and dim the lights. I felt like I couldn't say no.

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Speaker 4: I think something that a lot of men don't understand

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Speaker 4: is that the whole thing is so mortifying for a

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Speaker 4: young woman that you could do almost anything during exam

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Speaker 4: and they would not complain, Like you could bring in

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Speaker 4: a giraffe in the middle, and then the the draft

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Speaker 4: could leave and they'd be like, oh, I guess that's

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Speaker 4: what happens during a gynocological exam. I just can't wait

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Speaker 4: until this is over, Like it's so cringey, the whole thing,

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Speaker 4: and especially when you're like a seventeen year old girl

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Speaker 4: and a much older man who's a medical professional.

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Speaker 3: He said, I had a disease that no one's ever seen.

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Speaker 3: I think I was in my early twenties when I

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Speaker 3: saw him, but I believed him. I mean I took

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Speaker 3: him at his word as a doctor. He said he

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Speaker 3: could give me several treatments, or he could give me one,

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Speaker 3: but if we did one, it would be painful. And

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Speaker 3: I said, well, let's just do one. I mean, who

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Speaker 3: was to keep coming back over and over. I remember

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Speaker 3: him looking really unhappy that that was my decision, and

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Speaker 3: he tried to talk me out of that, and I

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Speaker 3: remember thinking, why are you trying to talk me out

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Speaker 3: of this? He used that ruse on a lot of women,

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Speaker 3: the exact same diagnosis on a lot of women, to

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Speaker 3: get them to keep coming back again and again.

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Speaker 2: Lucy g a USC grad student, since there was something

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Speaker 2: very wrong with the way Tindall was treating her, and

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Speaker 2: her suspicions were confirmed as soon as she was treated

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Speaker 2: by another doctor.

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Speaker 5: I actually had a complication, and so Tindall told me

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Speaker 5: that he would have to send me to us TECH

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Speaker 5: USC's off campus hospital to see a gynocologist there. While

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Speaker 5: I was at the clinic there, gynecologists told me she

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Speaker 5: needed to retest me because sometimes they make mistakes. But

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Speaker 5: the on compas clinic and I asked the gynecologist at Tech,

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Speaker 5: I said, don't you need to relax my baginal muscles?

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Speaker 5: And she said, oh, we don't do that here, and

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Speaker 5: she was clearly taken aback.

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Speaker 2: As Harriet begins looking into Tindall, she learns that he

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Speaker 2: had left USC in twenty sixteen, but still had his

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Speaker 2: medical license and he could still be out there of

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Speaker 2: treating patients. And Harriet's anonymous source tells her they're afraid

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Speaker 2: Tindall is trying to get his old job back at USC.

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Speaker 2: At first, we can't tell if the university pushed him

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Speaker 2: out because of the abuse, but then we find that

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Speaker 2: actually there have been formal complaints about Tyndall going back.

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Speaker 3: Decades before I saw him. Somebody had complained in writing,

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Speaker 3: and so they were molested and the university said, we'll

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Speaker 3: give you your money back for the exam.

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Speaker 4: There had been a discussion of going to the police

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Speaker 4: within the clinic, keeping caught taking photographs of girls genitals

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Speaker 4: and like Henman Fire.

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Speaker 2: After that, the more we learned, the more people are

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Speaker 2: willing to say. Harriet and Matt Hamilton had spoken to

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Speaker 2: a number of people who worked with Tyndall at the

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Speaker 2: Student Health Center, including a longtime nursing supervisor named Cindy Gilbert,

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Speaker 2: but she was hesitant at first to go on the record.

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Speaker 4: I remember talking to her early on, but she was

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Speaker 4: like very guarded. I mean, I think a lot of

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Speaker 4: times people want to see you work. They're like, are

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Speaker 4: you just gonna like make me do everything for you?

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Speaker 4: Are you're going to go out and work? And like,

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Speaker 4: we talked to her, she didn't want to be on

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Speaker 4: the record, and then we went out and worked, and

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Speaker 4: when we came back, you know, again we had a

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Speaker 4: lot more people, We had a lot more accounts.

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Speaker 2: Sidney Gilbert had worked at the Student Health Center for

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Speaker 2: many years. She was committed to USC, but she and

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Speaker 2: the other nurses had seen Tyndall's abuse go unchecked again

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Speaker 2: and again they were the ones trying to steer women

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Speaker 2: to other doctors and console his traumatized patients. She and

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Speaker 2: the other nurses had pleaded with doctor Larry Einstein, the

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Speaker 2: head of the health clinic, to take action, and Ninstein

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Speaker 2: had a very good idea what Tindall was doing.

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Speaker 6: Here's Matt had heard from many people at the clinic

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Speaker 6: who were alarmed by his use of a camera to

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Speaker 6: photograph students' bodies or genitals in ways that seem to

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Speaker 6: deviate from standard medical practices, and at one point doctor

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Speaker 6: Tindall was barred from using this camera.

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Speaker 2: Ninstein had also heard graphic complaints from students about Tyndall's

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Speaker 2: deeply troubling behavior. He reprimanded Tyndall and ordered him to desist,

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Speaker 2: but Tindall was defiant. Feeling he was out of options,

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Speaker 2: Ninstein informed USC's vice president of student affairs.

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Speaker 6: So there's an email from doctor Larry Ninsteen to his

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Speaker 6: boss Michael Jackson in two thousand and four, subject line

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Speaker 6: is confidential, and he says that he's quote increasingly concerned

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Speaker 6: about doctor Tindall, and at the end of his email

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Speaker 6: he says, I have not personally seen any threatening behavior

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Speaker 6: or violent behavior from doctor Tindall, but he says I

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Speaker 6: believe he was in an employment position before he went

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Speaker 6: into medical school. That quote included possessing a gun. So

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Speaker 6: he's suggesting that doctor Tyndall owns a firearm and that

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Speaker 6: somehow might factor into response from the university if they

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Speaker 6: were to question his conduct.

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Speaker 2: But the official response to Einstein's confidential report was to

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Speaker 2: do nothing, and Jackson is since denied he was ever

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Speaker 2: informed about Tyndall's abuse. In twenty ten, after yet another

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Speaker 2: student reported that Tyndall had abused her, Einstein informed a

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Speaker 2: lawyer in USC's Office of General Counsel. He also notified

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Speaker 2: the school's Title nine coordinator in the Office of Equity

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Speaker 2: and Diversity or OED, the General Counsel, and the OED

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Speaker 2: did nothing.

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Speaker 4: I think the concerns of women, female employees and students

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Speaker 4: were not.

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Speaker 6: Respected.

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Speaker 4: I think that their concerns should have set off and alarm.

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Speaker 4: I just don't think that their concerns were taken seriously.

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Speaker 4: And the other thing is just that I think us

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Speaker 4: he just has this like had this culture of like

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Speaker 4: no bad news, like nobody wants to hear any bad news.

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Speaker 6: Just solve the.

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Speaker 2: Problem, whether or not us he wanted it. This was

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Speaker 2: bad news that wouldn't go away. Cindy and her colleagues

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Speaker 2: continue to pressure nine Steen to do more, and he

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Speaker 2: complained again to the OED.

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Speaker 6: Doctor Ninsteen had reported that several staff and a student

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Speaker 6: had actually made allegations that doctor Tindall was making inappropriate comments,

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Speaker 6: and the complaint that came in was classified as harassment

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Speaker 6: along sexual and racial lines. He had apparently mentioned that

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Speaker 6: Mexicans are taking over and that prompted this big investigation.

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Speaker 6: Tindall himself was not interviewed, and less than two months

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Speaker 6: after this complaint reached OED, they closed it saying there

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Speaker 6: was insufficient evidence and basically kicked it back to doctor

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Speaker 6: Einstein to handle it. And it's clear that doctor Einstein

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Speaker 6: wanted to take further action, he was told he hadn't

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Speaker 6: reached the threshold reached fire Tindall, so he continued to

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Speaker 6: work at the clinic, but the concerns of nurses and

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Speaker 6: medical staff just continued to intensify and a lot of

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Speaker 6: this came to a head in June twenty.

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Speaker 2: Sixteen, Cindy could not take it anymore. She was done

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Speaker 2: with trying to solve this with HR bureaucratic divisions and

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Speaker 2: finally reported Tindall to the director of USC's Great Crisis Center.

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Speaker 2: And that's right at this time that Tyndall took a vacation, there.

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Speaker 6: Was a fruitfly infestation in the student health clinic. So

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Speaker 6: there was a swarm of insects. No one really knew

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Speaker 6: where it was coming from, and it leads Cindy Guilt

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Speaker 6: and a colleague to doctor Tyndall's office. They unlocked the door.

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Speaker 6: They eventually find rocken fruit and food under Tyndall's desk.

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Speaker 2: With Tindall out of the office, Cindy and her colleague

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Speaker 2: could look around. The place was filthy, covered in trash,

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Speaker 2: dirty needles, decaying fruit.

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Speaker 1: But that wasn't the worst of it. While they're looking

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Speaker 1: for other.

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Speaker 6: Sources of rotten food in his office, they find a

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Speaker 6: box of images of patients genitals. They were from nineteen

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Speaker 6: ninety one nineteen ninety two. There was identifying information of

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Speaker 6: some patients on them. There was no reason for him

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Speaker 6: to have this stack of patient images just sitting in

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Speaker 6: his office.

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Speaker 1: These images were impossible to ignore.

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Speaker 2: US's administration now had no choice but to finally deal

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Speaker 2: with Cindy's repeated complaints about sexual assaults.

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Speaker 6: They called doctor Tyndall. He's basically banned from campus on

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Speaker 6: some sort of paid leave, and they initiated this investigation

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Speaker 6: into doctor Tyndall.

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Speaker 2: The investigators uncovered more than enough evidence to fire Tyndall,

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Speaker 2: report him to the Medical Board and to the police,

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Speaker 2: but instead USC allowed Tyndall to challenge the findings in

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Speaker 2: an appeal.

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Speaker 1: The school kept.

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Speaker 2: Him on the payroll through twenty seventeen while they worked

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Speaker 2: out an agreement. Tyndall finally chose to resign in return

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Speaker 2: for a secret payoff of two hundred thousand dollars. He

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Speaker 2: retained his medical license, and the administration would keep everything

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Speaker 2: under wraps from the staffers who had complained, from the authorities,

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Speaker 2: and from Tyndall's many victims.

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Speaker 1: Here's Audrey.

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Speaker 3: The lace they had to go to to finally get

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Speaker 3: him fired was pretty extraordinary. The fact that other employees,

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Speaker 3: primarily female nurses, have been trying to get him to stack.

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Speaker 3: USC had more than enough notice and didn't care at all.

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Speaker 2: But now USC is starting to care. The administration learns

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Speaker 2: of our investigation and a few things happen, they changed

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Speaker 2: course and decide they will report Tyndall to the Medical

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Speaker 2: Board eight months after he's been allowed to resign. Another

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Speaker 2: three months go by before they finally notify the police

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Speaker 2: after they learned our reporting is focused on allegations of

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Speaker 2: sexual assault. As USC starts to think about damage control,

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Speaker 2: we're preparing to publish, and the atmosphere at the La

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Speaker 2: Times is totally different.

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Speaker 1: Under interim Editor in chief Jim Kirk, he.

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Speaker 7: Was cracking the whip. He wanted us to be digging

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Speaker 7: in to find out what USC's role was, what USC knew,

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Speaker 7: what USC did or didn't do about George Tindall.

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Speaker 1: Jack Leonard is one of our editors on the new story.

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Speaker 7: You had top editors who trusted the reporting, They trusted

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Speaker 7: the editing, and they were not afraid to go with

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Speaker 7: a big, blockbuster story when they had one.

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Speaker 2: Just like with Puliafido, there's still one more step we

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Speaker 2: need to take. We have to at least try to

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Speaker 2: interview Tyndall, give him a chance to respond to these allegations.

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Speaker 2: But unlike Pulliarfido, Tindall actually agrees. In the spring of

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, Matt and Harry had sit down with doctor

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Speaker 2: George Tyndall.

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Speaker 4: When we went out to his apartment building, it was

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Speaker 4: like he lived there, but his name wasn't on the buzzer.

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Speaker 4: You couldn't buzz his name, and like we asked like

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Speaker 4: the like the super and the Scuper's like, yeah, he

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Speaker 4: lives here. He doesn't want anyone visiting him. And so

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Speaker 4: I wait a few minutes and I called his house phone.

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Speaker 3: Left a message and he didn't pick up.

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Speaker 4: But then when I got back to the office, got

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Speaker 4: a call from him and he was like, I'm concerned

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Speaker 4: about the message you left. You said there's allegations against me,

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Speaker 4: and I was like, yeah, there are, and he was like,

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Speaker 4: I think we should meet. He wanted to meet at

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Speaker 4: the park near his house, the bottom of the street,

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Speaker 4: so Matt no one out there. We met with him.

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Speaker 4: I did not want to talk on the record at

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Speaker 4: that time, but we set up another meeting shortly thereafter,

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Speaker 4: and from then on he was on the record.

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Speaker 6: He eventually shows up and shakes our hand. He's really tall,

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Speaker 6: like I think, well over six feet, and I just

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Speaker 6: remember shaking his hand and thinking it was really big,

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Speaker 6: like it was it was a big hand. We've talked

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Speaker 6: to everyone who's worked around him, so we've heard everything.

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Speaker 6: Like people think he's just just has very poor hygiene.

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Speaker 6: They talk about like his shirts and he used incratic

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Speaker 6: habits and he's did smell a little bit. He wore

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Speaker 6: sunglasses and like a he wore a Barrong shirt, which

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Speaker 6: is like a Filipino dress shirt.

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Speaker 4: We spent ten hours with him and he doesn't dispute

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Speaker 4: a lot of the things. It's just like a matter

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Speaker 4: of interpretation. He thinks he's like an excellent kindecologist. And

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Speaker 4: there are a lot of like weird moments during that

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Speaker 4: interview where Matt Hamilton bought a textbook. He was always

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Speaker 4: referring to this one textbook that he used, got incological textbook.

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Speaker 4: Matt Hamilton bought it on an Amazon so it talks

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Speaker 4: about how to do a regular exam.

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Speaker 6: And we bought it to the park.

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Speaker 4: And he's like, see and he's like going through all

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Speaker 4: the steps that you're supposed to do it a regular

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Speaker 4: guy incological exam.

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Speaker 6: He went through and he highlighted everything he did line

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Speaker 6: by line. But you know, by the time it came

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Speaker 6: to actual contact with women's genitalia physically, Jenny closed the

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Speaker 6: book and what she described in terms of using his fingers,

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Speaker 6: it was not at the textbook and that was a

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Speaker 6: very big turning point, I think for Harriet and for myself,

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Speaker 6: because it's like kind of a real life example of

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Speaker 6: how he had convinced himself that what he was doing

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Speaker 6: was appropriate.

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Speaker 4: And then we started confronting him with things that, you know,

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Speaker 4: eyewitnesses had said, and he was sitting right next to me,

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Speaker 4: and I was just like, doctor Tundele, do you understand

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Speaker 4: that people are accusing you of sexually assaulting young women

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Speaker 4: for decades?

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Speaker 3: He had made a lot of arguments.

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Speaker 4: At that point, and we had moved past them, and

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Speaker 4: I think when I just said it like that, he

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Speaker 4: finally got that we were not going to be talked

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Speaker 4: into adopting his point of view on his medical practice.

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Speaker 4: And he got this like far away stair and they

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Speaker 4: just stood up and he walked away and we never

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Speaker 4: heard from him again.

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Speaker 8: Use this moment to encourage you, to embolden you, and

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Speaker 8: to literally push you into the rising of your life.

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Speaker 2: May eleventh, eighteen, Oprah Winfrey is delivering an inspiring commencement

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Speaker 2: speech to the graduates of USC's Journalism School. At that

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Speaker 2: same moment, Matt and Harriet are sitting with three top

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Speaker 2: USC administrators.

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Speaker 6: It's commencement day, it's swarming with people. There's just like families,

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Speaker 6: and everyone's in a joyous mood. And I remember, like

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Speaker 6: Harry and I going to this office on the edge

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Speaker 6: of campus. They had known for a long time that

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Speaker 6: we had been recruiting on doctor Tangel and asking questions,

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Speaker 6: So scheduling the sit down interview on commencement day at

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Speaker 6: least had the effect, whether intended or not, to guarantee

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Speaker 6: that any story wouldn't come out until after all the

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Speaker 6: festivities surrounding graduation wouldn't at least be marred by any

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Speaker 6: sort of story that put the university into bad light.

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Speaker 6: They had an hour set aside for the meeting. This

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Speaker 6: was a big story covering, you know, wide range of time.

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Speaker 6: When you consider that we had had hours to sit

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Speaker 6: with doctor Tindall but only an hour with USC. We

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Speaker 6: planned to move efficiently through the questions, and USC's administrators

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Speaker 6: began off by giving these like detailed bios of themselves

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Speaker 6: that last like twenty minutes. I mean, we're trying to

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Speaker 6: be friendly and just kind of take it in, but

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Speaker 6: you know, at a certain point it was like, I

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Speaker 6: don't need to know your resume, And because it was

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Speaker 6: just this, it seemed like they were a filibus train,

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Speaker 6: and so we immediately are like, okay, we haven't at

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Speaker 6: this point forty minutes or so, we have to move

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Speaker 6: into questions, and we start going.

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Speaker 1: Over what they sent.

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Speaker 6: Us in their responses, trying to drill down. I remember

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Speaker 6: having whiplash after going through that interview and kind of

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Speaker 6: debating the finer points of doctor Tindall's conduct with students

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Speaker 6: and what us he knew, and why they fired him,

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Speaker 6: and why they paid him money, and why they didn't

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Speaker 6: report him to the Medical Board, and then walking out

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Speaker 6: of that interview and you see students beaming with their

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Speaker 6: parents and they're wearing the tops and gowns and taking

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Speaker 6: photos and selvies.

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Speaker 2: Four days after Harriet Matt's meeting, US issues a statement

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Speaker 2: to the paper. The school claims it did not violate

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Speaker 2: a California statute requiring hospitals and clinics to report problem

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Speaker 2: doctors to the Medical Board because US was quote a

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Speaker 2: school and not a hospital or clinic. With our story

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Speaker 2: just about to publish, Nikias tries to get ahead of it.

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Speaker 2: He emails the entire university, disclosing the allegations against Tyndall

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Speaker 2: and apologizing to quote any student who may have visited

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Speaker 2: the Student Health Center and did not receive the respectful

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Speaker 2: care each individual deserves.

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Speaker 1: But it's too late. We published four hours later.

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Speaker 2: Like our story on Puliofido, the news about Tindall explodes

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Speaker 2: across the country.

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Speaker 6: The doctor was suspended by USC two years ago, news

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Speaker 6: of that wasn't made public until today.

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Speaker 9: In fact, nothing pertaining to this doctor was made public

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Speaker 9: until today.

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Speaker 2: CBS News isn't buying the timing of Nikias's letter either.

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Speaker 2: For survivors like Lucy ch it's a surreal experience. Suddenly

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Speaker 2: the full extent of Tyndall's crimes are visible, and she

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Speaker 2: can see them for.

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Speaker 1: What they are.

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Speaker 5: The only time I actually realized there was something wrong

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Speaker 5: was after Billy Times article came out and I ended

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Speaker 5: up calling some lawyers and one of my lawyers told me,

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Speaker 5: what you just described that sexual assault. It really shocked me.

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Speaker 5: It really shocked me. Like I had been talking to

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Speaker 5: multiple lawyers and no one said that flat out to me,

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Speaker 5: and it just blew me away. I was like, oh

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Speaker 5: my god, that really happened.

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Speaker 2: Now that the story is out there, USC looks for

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Speaker 2: any way to dodge accountability. The administration blames Ninsteen, the

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Speaker 2: head of the student Health Center who died before Tyndall

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Speaker 2: was suspended in twenty seventeen. USC says nothing about Ninstein's

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Speaker 2: multiple complaints to the oed to the General Council, the

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Speaker 2: title nine coordinator and hr all, of which were dismissed

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Speaker 2: or ignored. Here's Adry Nassinger again, So to.

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Speaker 3: Cover up by people at higher levels that just do

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Speaker 3: not care. I initially felt a sense of responsibility. Wow,

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Speaker 3: if I had spoken out all those years ago, maybe

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Speaker 3: I could have stopped those generations and women after me.

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Speaker 3: But the more reporting that came out and the more

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Speaker 3: I read, it was very obvious that they had plenty

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Speaker 3: of notice and think here didn't matter to them at all.

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Speaker 2: Six former students and patients join in a lawsuit against

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Speaker 2: Tyndall and also file suit against USC for failing to

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Speaker 2: fire him within a month. There are fifty two women involved.

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Speaker 2: ABC's David Muir covers the fast moving story on World

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Speaker 2: News Tonight.

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Speaker 7: They claim it went on for years and that the

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Speaker 7: university failed to respond to complaints. Tonight, there have now

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Speaker 7: been hundreds of calls to a hotline that's been set up.

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Speaker 6: David I spoke with a lawyer who said today he

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Speaker 6: talked to thirty six other women who say they were

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Speaker 6: also assaulted by doctor Tindall, and he expects that number to.

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Speaker 2: Grow more and more women come forward to the La

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Speaker 2: Times with their stories of abuse, the LAPD opens what

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Speaker 2: will become one of the city's biggest sexual abuse investigations ever.

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Speaker 10: Currently, Artie Texas had the names of fifty two former

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Speaker 10: patients who have alleged inappropriate conduct by doctor Tyndall while

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Speaker 10: he worked as a guidecologist at the University of Southern California.

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Speaker 1: The time frame of.

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Speaker 2: This Nikyas tries to return to the Puliafeidal playbook. He

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Speaker 2: deflects blame, says he knew nothing about Tyndall and issues

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Speaker 2: of vague apology. But this time the drum beat is

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Speaker 2: just too loud, and the faculty at USC they decide

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Speaker 2: they've had enough.

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Speaker 11: Puliaffido was shocking and disturbing and deeply problematic.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Jane John is a professor of political science and

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Speaker 2: international relations at USC, as well as gender and sexuality studies.

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Speaker 11: We didn't actually know all of it until much later,

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Speaker 11: because much of it had been attempted to be covered

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Speaker 11: up by the university, and I believed to some degree

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Speaker 11: participation of the Pasadena Police.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Ariela Gross was a professor of law and history

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Speaker 2: at USC for twenty seven years.

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Speaker 12: It wasn't until that Puliaffido story was broken in the

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Speaker 12: La Times that we started to really pay attention. And

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Speaker 12: I remember conversations with colleagues from the law school when

434
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Speaker 12: the Puliaffido story came out about Wow, this is really bad.

435
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Speaker 12: I remember firing off a letter to the president of

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Speaker 12: the Academic Senate saying, isn't the faculty going to do

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00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 12: something thing? Say something, and them saying, look, there's an

438
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 12: investigation happening. Let's wait for the investigation. When the Tendall

439
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 12: story broke, that's when we were like, okay, that is

440
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 12: the last straw. We should not have been silent a

441
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 12: year ago, and we're not going to be silent now.

442
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: For doctor John, there was a feeling among the faculty

443
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 2: that they owed this to the students.

444
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 11: You feel, if not like complicit in it, you do

445
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 11: feel like a bit of a bystander. We couldn't protect them,

446
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 11: we couldn't do anything to help them. We hadn't done anything,

447
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 11: which is why we decided to do something they never

448
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 11: told us anything. They issued a few letters which were

449
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,159
Speaker 11: frankly bs, a lot of denials like, oh man, we

450
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 11: didn't know, Like nobody believes that. So we formed a

451
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 11: group maybe fifty of us at the beginning, and we

452
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 11: were all tenured full professors.

453
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 12: We had decided that we would go public once we

454
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 12: had two hundred. We were having trouble figuring out, because

455
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 12: it's such a secretive board, how to send it to

456
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 12: the board. And then finally somebody said to me, just

457
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 12: email it to the president's office. Even though it'll say

458
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 12: to the chairman of the Board of trustees, c see

459
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 12: the President's office. Don't worry.

460
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 6: They'll get it.

461
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 8: You know, immediately.

462
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 12: And the letter called for President Nikias to step down.

463
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 2: Doctor Gross goes on national TV on NBC's The Today

464
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 2: Show to make their case.

465
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 13: According to The La Times, Tyndall was quietly paid off

466
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 13: to leave the school last year. President Nikias says he

467
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 13: understands the faculty's anger and frustration, but the university's board

468
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 13: of trustees says it has full confidence in his leadership.

469
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:54,719
Speaker 12: That I think really freaked the board out because they

470
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 12: were like, uh, oh, now this is really a national story.

471
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 12: And the academic seen, which had absolutely ignored us before this,

472
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 12: said oh, I guess we need to call a public meeting,

473
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 12: and that was held the following day, on a Wednesday.

474
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 11: I actually worried that no one would come, because usually

475
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 11: when there's some kind of a scandal or something negative,

476
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 11: the faculty just go quiet, and we go quiet, because faculty,

477
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 11: I've been punished for speaking out. You're sort of frozen out.

478
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 11: It's a little bit putinesque, if you ask me. And

479
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 11: when we got there, you could barely find a sea

480
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 11: if the room was packed. And we were calling the

481
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 11: man to be accountable, and we wanted him to take

482
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 11: responsibility and to say they would fix it.

483
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: US's powerful secretive board has been standing behind a KIAS

484
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 2: led by billionaire developer Rick Caruso, the board chair. They

485
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 2: decide that for the good of the school, they need

486
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 2: to make a change. Gruso calls on leaders among the

487
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 2: faculty to meet with the kias and reinforce this position.

488
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 2: Doctor William Tierney, USC's professor emeritus, remembers the meeting.

489
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 9: Max's kind of sober. I always remember reading that when

490
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 9: it was over with Nixon, I think it was Everett Dirkson,

491
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 9: a minority Centator went to the White House and he said, Dick,

492
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 9: it's over. And that's the way I felt with us

493
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 9: is we weren't angry, but we needed him to see

494
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:34,399
Speaker 9: it was over.

495
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 2: On May twenty eighteen, Max Nikias resigns as president of USC.

496
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 2: The Today Show covers this development on the board's change

497
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: of heart.

498
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 9: Breaking overnight a bombshell announcement at the University of Southern California,

499
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 9: President C. L.

500
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 13: Max Nikias agreeing to step down in the wake of

501
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 13: a scandal.

502
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 4: But this isn't about face from the university's board of trustees.

503
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 2: But as doctor two he might have predicted, Max Nikias

504
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 2: does not simply walk away. As Nikias knows, probably better

505
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: than anyone us, he likes to solve its problems with money.

506
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 9: He talked with his lawyer and he gets a seven

507
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 9: million dollar buyout that the board provides him. The board

508
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 9: at that time is really at loggerheads with one another,

509
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 9: and there are some who want him to return, you know,

510
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 9: like he was on leave for the summer and he's

511
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 9: going to come back in September. It was crazy, and

512
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 9: he's still living in the president's house. How awkward is

513
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 9: all this?

514
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 2: You know, when Moord gets out about this most recent backsliding,

515
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: six hundred and seventy faculty members sign a petition demanding

516
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 2: the board make sure Nikias is gone by the fall semester.

517
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 9: It was conveyed to Max. If he did not resign

518
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 9: by whatever it was, August fifteenth or something, all holy

519
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 9: hell would break close. Faculty would teach, I mean, it

520
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 9: would have been nutty. So he did, but I mean

521
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 9: seven million dollars.

522
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 2: Really, the board still keeps Nikias on the faculty in

523
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: the School of Engineering. It awards him the title of

524
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 2: President Emeritus and names him to a prestigious position as

525
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 2: a life trustee. It's a golden parachute, and for those

526
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 2: like doctor Jane John, USC's response is not enough.

527
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 11: We did not receive representation on the Board of Trustees.

528
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 11: They promised to do an investigation, they told us it

529
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 11: was underway, and then it was revealed last year that

530
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 11: no investigation had taken place.

531
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 3: There's no report.

532
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 12: USC was not the only university to have a doctor

533
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 12: who preyed on women's.

534
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: Students, doctor Ariella Gross.

535
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 12: Unfortunately, that's happened at a number of major universities, but

536
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 12: USC as the word in terms of its cover up,

537
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 12: its secrecy, it's golden handshakes for wrongdoers, and its refusal

538
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 12: to truly investigate and figure out what went wrong and

539
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 12: how to avoid doing it again. None of that.

540
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: On June twenty sixth, twenty nineteen, Tindall is arrested by

541
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 2: the LAPD. Almost two years later, USC settles a class

542
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 2: action lawsuit with over seven hundred plaintiffs, generations of young

543
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 2: USC women who have been abused by Tyndall. The payout

544
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: is eight hundred and fifty two million dollars, and that's

545
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: on top of more than two hundred and fifteen million

546
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: US already had agreed to pay other groups of Tyndall's accusers.

547
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 2: In the end, doctor George Tindall costs USC one point

548
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: one billion dollars. It's the largest sexual abuse settlement in

549
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 2: the history of American higher education.

550
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: But it's not enough.

551
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 5: Honestly, I remember feeling really disappointed because I was convinced

552
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 5: that I wasn't just fighting for a restitution, and I

553
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 5: was convinced I was fighting for somewhat at USC to

554
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 5: be held accountable because I didn't want this to happen

555
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 5: again to anyone else in any other university of your

556
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 5: hospital and I remember when the settlement came out, I thought,

557
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 5: I hope this isn't it. I hope this isn't the end.

558
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 5: I hope there's actually a sense of justice.

559
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 2: As a prosecutor, Audrey knows the settlement settles nothing.

560
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 3: I'm not done because only Tyndall has been investigated, and

561
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 3: that's not enough. It's not about the money, it's about accountability.

562
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 3: Who signed the two hundred thousand dollars check to Tindall

563
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 3: to make him go away quietly? Somebody on the board

564
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 3: had to know that. I mean, they don't just sign

565
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,959
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand dollars checks every day. And it's just

566
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 3: like USC to buy their way out of a problem,

567
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 3: and nobody to be held to account other than Tindall,

568
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 3: who's still sitting at home right now as we as we.

569
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 2: Record this, Tindall's no longer sitting at home, and we'll

570
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 2: get into that in our next episode. But accountability, that's

571
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 2: another question entirely. That's coming up on the season finale

572
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 2: of Fallen Angels. Fallen Angels, a Story of California Corruption

573
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 2: is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best

574
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 2: Case Studios. I'm Paul Pringle, This show is based on

575
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: my book Bad City, Peril and Power in the City

576
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 2: of Angels. Fallen Angels was written by Isabel Evans, Adam Pinks,

577
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 2: and Brent Katz. Isabel Evans is our producer, Brent Katz

578
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 2: is co producer. Associate producers are Hanna Leebowitz Lockhart and

579
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 2: On Pajo lock Executive producers are Me, Paul Pringle, Joe Picorello,

580
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 2: and Adam Pinkus for Best Case Studios.

581
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: Original music is by James Newberry.

582
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 2: This episode was edited by Max Michael Miller with assistants

583
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 2: from Nisha Venkat. Additional editings, sound design and additional music

584
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 2: by Dean White, Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton, Sarah Parvini and

585
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 2: Adam Olmarik are consulting producers. Our iHeart team is Ali

586
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 2: Perry and Carl Catle. Follow and rate Fallen Angels wherever

587
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts