N.Z. man testifies in Brych’s favour

Press, 4 March 1983, Page 4

N.Z. man testifies in Brych’s favour

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

An Auckland man who said he once suffered from chronic arthritis told a Los Angeles court that he was no longer confined to a wheelchair because of treatment given to him by a therapist, Milan Brych. “The pain stopped. The realisation was marvellous," said John Mallon, aged 25.

Mr Mallon said he did not know what the substance was that Brych injected into him. Mr Mallon was testifying in defence of Brych, aged 43, who practised in New Zealand and the Cook Islands before coming to California. Brych is charged with conspiring with Dr Richard O’Connor, of California, who has himself since died of cancer, to defraud cancer

and arthritis patients by using an unproved treatment, and also with practising medicine in California without a licence. Mr Mallon, who walks with a slightly stiff gait, and has a noticeable deformity in the hands, said he recalled having physical difficulties, as early as the age of four, when he had trouble tying his shoe-laces and playing games. By the age of 10, he said, his affliction worsened. Mr Mallon said that doctors administered “a lot of aspirins and steroids,” but nothing seemed to help. The question of who is paying for defence witnesses to fly to Los Angeles from New Zealand and Australia is unclear.

A San Gabriel “Valley Tribune” reporter, Bill Hether-

man, had asked Brych how many witnesses would come and said he had replied that it depended on how many the defence could afford to bring. The prosecutor, Mr Lee Harris, had maintained all along that a group called the Friends of Rarotonga was financing Brych’s defence. Mr Hetherman said.

But the group’s secretary, Mr Kevin McCulloch, of Melbourne, the husband of one of Brych’s patients, denied in the witness-box that the Friends of Rarotonga were financing the defence or had raised funds for a proposed hospital in Century City, an exclusive area of Los Angeles.