STATE DROPS COSTLY 6-YEAR PROBE OF ABORTION DOCTOR.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

The Medical Board of California has quietly dropped efforts to revoke the license of a Pacoima family planning physician accused of mishandling several abortions - including two that resulted in death.

The state board's investigation into Leo F. Kenneally was one of the longest and priciest probes ever into a California doctor, lasting six years and costing upward of $300,000.

The case involved dozens of allegations against the 71-year-old physician, who is believed to have performed tens of thousands of abortions.

Dixon Arnett, the board's former executive director and Kenneally's most ardent accuser, has called the physician a public danger who should ``do the world a favor and retire.''

So convinced is Arnett that Kenneally should be put out of business that he undertook a successful campaign to persuade his own agency to reverse itself and revoke rather than suspend the physician's license.

But on the heels of a Sacramento County judge's decision earlier this year to reinstate Kenneally's license, the board decided not to appeal and closed its books on the case.

``This is the end of it,'' said Dave Thornton, the board's supervising investigator. ``We view Kenneally as having a free and unrestricted license.''

Kenneally's attorney, Jay Hartz of Century City, said the physician was relieved that his long ordeal was over.

Hartz maintains that Kenneally was - and continues to be - an excellent physician. The case against him, Hartz said, was the result of pressure from anti-abortion groups.

``Here's a guy who stuck it out through a very lengthy and protracted and difficult time and wasn't going to let himself get pushed out of business on unjust charges,'' Hartz said.

The ruling by now-retired Sacramento Superior Court Judge Roger K. Warren overturned the board's 1995 revocation of Kenneally's license.

Pending the outcome of the appeal, Kenneally had obtained a stay of the revocation, enabling him to continue to perform abortions and other types of family planning medicine.

Kenneally's busy practice on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima goes under the name Her Medical Clinic and serves mostly minority and low-income women. The physician declined comment last week, saying through a receptionist that he has a longstanding policy against media interviews.

The board decided to forgo an appeal of Warren's ruling based on a recommendation from Adrian Panton, a deputy attorney general who fought the case on behalf of the state.

``It wasn't a weak case,'' Panton said. But ``there were certainly a lot of allegations that we did not have the expert evidence to support.''

In an interview, Warren said he ruled for Kenneally in February because ``there wasn't any claim that was supported by the weight of the evidence in the record.

``I gave the case very close attention.''

Panton said that to prevail at the appellate level, he would have had to convince jurists that the experts who testified on behalf of Kenneally were not credible, an outcome that he felt was unrealistic.

Ron Joseph, the current executive director of the board, declined comment on the decision to drop the case, except to say that attorneys advised that an appeal would be fruitless.

Even so, the decision not to appeal surprised Warren, now the president of the nonprofit National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va.

``I assumed that because it was a hotly litigated case, it would be appealed,'' Warren said.

And Arnett, who left the medical board in 1995 when Gov. Pete Wilson chose him to head the Department of Aging, said he was disappointed by the decision not to pursue the case against Kenneally.

``The system, I think, fails us here in this case,'' Arnett said. ``It sends a bad message, that if you've got enough bucks, if you've got legal technicalities on your side, under standards of proof that we rightfully have in our laws, you can beat (an accusation),'' Arnett said.

Hartz, however, insisted that his client was not negligent, either in the two fatal cases or several other cases involving abortion complications.

Hartz said the women who died experienced amniotic fluid embolism, ``an underlying complication that is not predictable, not preventable, not treatable and is usually lethal.''

According to Milford A. Maron, the administrative law judge who presided at Kenneally's hearings in 1993 and 1994, the physician probably has performed about 100,000 abortions, likely more than any other doctor in the state.

Anti-abortion activists said they were disappointed that the board has decided not to fight Warren's ruling.

Anne J. Kindt of the Napa-based Life Legal Defense Foundation, which represents anti-abortion interests, said that activists would keep a watchful eye on Kenneally's practice in the event that another patient complains of negligent treatment.

``He better make sure he crosses all his T's and dots all his I's in his business. We'll be looking over his shoulder,'' Kindt said.

Kindt said that activists known as ``sidewalk counselors'' work in the area of the Pacoima clinic, talking to Kenneally's patients.

Kenneally has been the target of picketing by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. In 1993, a judge ordered protesters to stay at least 30 feet away from Kenneally's Canyon Country home, his Van Nuys Boulevard clinic, and a second office on South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.

Kenneally no longer is associated with the Los Angeles clinic.

Kenneally's license revocation was based on findings that the physician improperly handled abortions in 1986 and 1987 for two women, ages 18 and 22, who died following the procedures, and cases involving five other women, who experienced complications, some of which resulted in hysterectomies.

Maron, though recommending in 1994 that Kenneally's license be suspended for a year as a result of injuries to his patients, commended Kenneally for providing low-cost services in medically underserved neighborhoods.

In the recommendation, Maron also noted that Kenneally is ``viewed by his professional colleagues as a skilled and innovative provider.''

The board at first implemented Maron's recommendation. But in 1995, at Arnett's urging, the agency voted to revoke Kenneally's license.

Kenneally was the target of earlier disciplinary proceedings by the board. In 1976, he received a stayed, six-month license suspension and was placed on two years probation.

Six years later, he received a stayed revocation of his license and was placed on three years probation.