First victim of Las Vegas hepatitis outbreak dies

Rodolfo Meana, one of the seven hepatitis C victims in the criminal case against Dr. Dipak Desai, has died of complications from the virus in the Philippines.

And that could lead to more serious charges - including murder - against the physician at the center of the 2007 hepatitis C outbreak, one of the worst medical calamities in Southern Nevada.

Meana, 77, who came to the United States in 1997 from the Philippines, died April 27, about a month after he returned to the Philippines to spend his remaining weeks of life, court records show.

"It's our position that he died as a result of complications directly related to the hepatitis C virus," his attorney, Nia Killebrew, said Tuesday. "He had been suffering miserably the last six months of his life."

Killebrew, who filed a petition July 7 for the appointment of an administrator to oversee Meana's estate here, said Meana had kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver and other serious aliments.

He was buried in the Philippines.

Killebrew described Meana, who had a decorated career in the military in the Philippines before becoming a U.S. citizen, as an "incredible" and "wonderful" man.

"It's a tragedy that he had to pay the ultimate price for this," she said.

Meana's hepatitis C infection was among seven the Southern Nevada Health District genetically linked to Desai's lead clinic, the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.

Meana and five other patients contracted the virus through unsafe injection practices Sept. 21, 2007, the health district concluded in an investigative report on the hepatitis outbreak. Another patient was infected July 25, 2007.

The patients, all of whom testified before a county grand jury, are named as victims of felony criminal neglect in a 28-count indictment against the 62-year-old gastroenterologist and two of his nurse anesthetists, Keith Mathahs and Ronald Lakeman.

The three defendants, who also are facing felony charges of racketeering, insurance fraud and obtaining money under false pretenses, are to stand trial Oct. 22 in the courtroom of District Judge Valerie Adair.

All three men are free on bail. Desai, who has surrendered his medical license, posted $1 million in cash to keep from being jailed while fighting the criminal charges.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to comment on whether his office is now seeking murder charges against Desai and the other defendants.

But former District Attorney David Roger, who was at the helm of the office when Desai was indicted in June 2010, said he was ready at the time, if the circumstances arose, to charge the defendants with murder.

"We knew that this alleged conduct could result in someone's death, and we were fully prepared to file murder charges," Roger said.

The defendants could face more prison time on a tougher criminal neglect charge involving Meana because of his death, Roger said.

Instead of a sentence of one to six years behind bars if convicted, Roger explained, they now stand to receive up to 20 years in prison.

"The most likely course of action for prosecutors would be to present the new evidence to a grand jury and obtain a superseding indictment," Roger said.

Desai's lawyer, Richard Wright, and Mathahs' attorney, Michael Cristalli, both declined to comment. Lakeman's lawyer, Rick Santacroce, could not be reached for comment.

Before Meana left for the Philippines, the district attorney's office won court permission to take his sworn deposition to preserve his testimony for Desai's trial, but Meana ended up being too sick to answer questions, and his deposition was cut short.

Prosecutors sought to take the deposition of another ailing hepatitis victim in the case, Carole Grueskin, but that never took place.

Grueskin, 72, who lives in a convalescent home, was stricken with dementia, worsened by the virus. She was unable to provide coherent testimony.

Meana talked about his struggles in dealing with hepatitis C in a 2008 interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

His biggest fear was inadvertently passing on the virus to someone else, including his wife, Linda, and his grandchildren.

"I do not want to give hepatitis to someone else," he said. "I don't want to make an innocent so sick."

Meana remained upbeat but pragmatic about his debilitating illness.

"I love the United States, being close to my grandchildren," he said. "I came here partly because it is the safest country in the world.

"Sometimes, though, I've learned even the safest country may be safe from war, but not other things."

Contact reporter Jeff German at jgerman@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.