LOS ANGELES, July 27 (UPI) -- Whether an investigator is a convicted murderer could dramatically affect the trial of a California university professor in the death of a worker at his lab.
Thomas O'Brien, an attorney for UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran, charged in court papers Thursday that the chief investigator in the case, Brian Baudendistel, "murdered a man in cold blood during a failed drug deal" in 1985 when he was 16, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Baudendistel has denied the charge.
His credibility is critical in the trial of Harran and UCLA, who are being tried in the death of Sheharan Sangii from fatal burns she received when an experiment burst into flames at the UCLA lab in December 2008.
Baudendistel, a senior investigator for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, wrote a 95-page report charging that Harran and UCLA were negligent in their lab safety practices, which led to Sangii's death.
While juvenile records regarding the 1985 murder are sealed, O'Brien said the case was extensively covered at the time by local newspapers. The age and last name of the teenager charged matches that of the investigator.
If the defense is successful in discrediting Baudendistel, charges against Harran and UCLA would have to be dropped because they had not been properly brought within the three-year statute of limitations.
