San Francisco Settles Lawsuit Over Jeff Adachi Autopsy Dispute

The city of San Francisco has tentatively agreed to pay $436,000 to a former medical examiner who says he was fired for refusing to change an autopsy report in the 2019 death of public defender Jeff Adachi, NBC’s Bay Investigation Unit has learned. area.

Christopher Wirowek was the chief operating officer of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner back in February 2019 when Adachi died at the age of 59. He was found unconscious in an apartment on North Beach.

Virovec said he personally oversaw the investigation into the death police case, which was initially considered suspicious. The final official autopsy report blames the toxic effects of cocaine and alcohol on Adachi’s already ailing heart.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but instead I got fired,” Virovek said in a video posted on the Facebook page of one of his lawyers. In 2020, Wirowek sued the city, alleging that the dismissal was wrongful. He declined our request for an interview for this story.

In the video and in the lawsuit, Virovek says that on the day the autopsy report was due to be released, he was visited by then city administrator Naomi Kelly.

“She wanted to see the entire autopsy report,” Virovek said in a Facebook video. “She went line by line – there were some changes – and I said no …”.

In court documents, Virovec’s lawyers claim that Kelly wanted Virovec to remove all references to cocaine and the companion Adachi was with before he died.

City officials said in legal responses that Kelly merely asked a couple of “harmless” questions about the cocaine references and never asked about the companion. Wirowek was fired a few months later, the city claims in court documents, after being caught mishandling “completely confidential” personnel records.

Virovec’s lawyers argue that the allegations in the document were a pretext for revenge by the whistleblowers. Virovec insists that the real reason was his refusal to change the autopsy report.

“I got fired because I said no to Miss Kelly. That I will not falsify the autopsy report of Mr. Adachi,” Virovek said in the lawyer’s Facebook video post.

Kelly, who has since left the city, did not respond to requests for comment, but city officials initially called Virovec’s legal claims “a complete sham.” However, documents filed this week with city officials confirm both parties have reached an agreement to settle the $436,000 lawsuit. The City Attorney’s Office said it considers the amount to be “an appropriate solution given the inherent costs of continuing the trial.”

The city’s board of supervisors has yet to formally approve the settlement before it becomes final.