The former dean of the University of Southern California’s medicine school has a history of partying with young criminals and allegedly taking meth and ecstasy with them.
An investigation by the Los Angeles Times uncovered the sordid history of Dr Carmen Puliafito, 66, who abruptly quit his job last year soon after a 21-year-old woman overdosed in his Pasadena hotel room.
Dr. Carmen Puliafito, 66, is no stranger to juggling the tasks high profile administration posts. He was head of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute from 2001 to 2007, before moving on to USC.
But according to a bombshell report published Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, Puliafito led a double life that included doing drugs in hotel rooms with people much younger than him. He resigned as dean of the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine in March 2016. Three weeks prior, a 21-year-old woman overdosed in Puliafito’s presence in a Southern California hotel room.
The woman, named as Sarah Warren, was rushed to hospital after the overdose in March 2016 and was able to recover. Police found meth in the hotel room but no one was ever arrested, no charges were preferred.

He resigned as dean of Keck School of Medicine three weeks later after a witness to the overdose informed police and USC of Puliafito’s behavior.
Puliafito’s secret life was chronicled in photos and video shot between 2015 and 2016 by his drug-related friends.

His double life was chronicled in numerous photos and videos, taken in 2015 and 2016 and reviewed by the Times, of Puliafito taking pills and smoking from glass pipes — used to consume methamphetamine — with people who were much younger. The photos and videos have not been published.
The footage, reviewed by the Times, allegedly shows him taking pills and smoking from glass meth pipes.
It showed the renowned eye surgeon partying with others in hotel rooms, cars and even the dean’s office at USC. Puliafito was also filmed heating a glass meth pipe, inhaling and blowing out white smoke.
He was filmed once showing an orange pill on his tongue before he swallowed it and said: ‘Thought I’d take an ecstasy before the ball.’

Sarah Warren met Carmen Puliafito in early 2015. She claims they had been partying at the Hotel Constance in Pasadena, Calif. [right], when a dose of the drug GHB left her “completely incapacitated.” A hotel employee called 911., fortunately she recovered

The drug overdose patient, Sarah Warren, said she met Puliafito while working as a prostitute in 2015. They saw each other regularly and she claims they would often spend the night together in hotel rooms he paid for.
When she overdosed, Puliafito told the 911 operator he was a doctor.
‘My girlfriend here had a bunch of drinks and she’s sleeping,’ he told the dispatcher. When asked if the woman had taken anything else, he replied: ‘I think just the alcohol.’

Puliafito, who is married with three children, oversaw hundreds of medical students, professors research grants as dean of USC’s med school.
He was also heavily involved in fundraising and attended star-studded USC galas where he would pose behind celebrities, including Jay Leno, Gwyneth Paltrow and Pierce Brosnan.
When he resigned from his $1.1 million job, the Harvard graduate said it was to explore outside opportunities.

Dean Puliafito was heavily involved in fundraising and attended star-studded USC galas where he would pose behind celebrities, including Jay Leno, seen [right] in this 2914 fundraiser.

The brilliant Puliafito helped invent a laser technology to help diagnose and treat eye disease. He also worked as director of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute from 2001 to 2007 before taking up his post at USC.
He was once hit with a lawsuit by an optometrist while working at the Miami university accusing him of assault and battery in 2006. Puliafito denied wrongdoing and him and the university reached a settlement with the optometrist the following year.
He is still on faculty at USC and his website says he still sees new patients at campus eye clinics.