Tumblr Banker Establishes Quattrone Center for Fair Administration of Justice - Video

Frank Quattrone and Pennsylvania Innocence Project dinner  chairman Carolyn Short

Investment banking giant, Frank Quattrone, had a busy May. Quattrone, the CEO and founder of Qatalyst Partners in San Francisco, advised Tumblr, which was sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion. His wife, Denise Foderaro Quattrone, was honored at the Pennsylvania Innocence Project dinner earlier in the month. 

Denise Foderao Quattrone, who is tiny, is second to left. 

It was announced at the dinner that the couple, who are both Penn Alumni and Philadelphia natives, is establishing the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.The idea for the center originated after Frank Quattrone's entanglement with the legal system. He was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering in 2004 and ordered to serve 18 months in jail. The appeals courts dismissed one of the charges. Quattrone later signed a deferred prosecution agreement that admitted no guilt.

After his ordeal, Quattrone realized that there must be other innocent people in prison who did not have his resources to fight their charges and selflessly decided to help them. This has motivated the Quattrone to quietly work to reform the justice system and help those that have been wrongly accused.

The new Quattrone Center could introduce a new paradigm for the criminal justice system. It will be a game changer for the wrongfully accused. With the help of the center, the innocent may now have a chance of clearing their name. It will be interesting to see if other Penn alumni that have had their skirmishes with law enforcement, such as Michael Milken and Steven A Cohen will contribute to the center.





When one listens Frank and Denise Quattrone's moving account of their legal odyssey, it is immediately apparent that our criminal justice system is broken.The average person has very little chance of proving their innocence without a "fierce warrior" as he lovingly calls his wife. Denise worked so intensely on his case that the defense team devoted one lawyer to answering her emails.

While their fellow members of their economic class typically donate to the arts or medical institutions, the Quattrones have chosen to help the lowest of the low-prisoners. The couple doesn't just write checks. They get their hands dirty. Denise Quattrone researches the exonerated for the National Exoneration Registry, which details every known person exonerated since 1989. University of Michigan law professor, Samuel Gross, estimates that she has found 1/2 of the names on the registry.

She often meets the families of the wrongly accused at a San Francisco hotel to offer her support. She also sponsors a retreat for these families and has paid for them to fly to hearings.

The Quattrones work with many of the innocence projects across the country. They were one of the first to unite the disparate state organizations. Representatives from several of these organizations were in attendance at last night's dinner to pay respect to the Quattrones.

The innocence projects do not only work to free the innocent. They also lobby law enforcement and legislatures to instill best practices to facilitate reversing a wrong conviction in the future. Richard Glazer, executive director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project noted, when I interviewed him for Metro , would like to see more district attorney's office establish conviction integrity units within their own offices. 

The Pennsylvania Innocence Project is pushing the legislature to pass laws that would make evidence preservation rules uniform throughout the state. “Evidence, such as rape kits and blood, is currently kept randomly. Our investigators find them in court, medical examiners, or DA’s files,” said Glazer. 

As a bonus, I have included two short clips showing the warm side of Quattrone. 

Gladwell Lambastes Penn for Continuing Football Program

Leading intellectual Malcolm Gladwell, while at the University of Pennsylvania, lambasted the university for continuing their football program after the suicide of Penn football captain Owen Thomas. The examination of the 21 year old's brain showed that he had early signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) possibly caused by hits to the head on the field. NFL players that have prematurely died, such as linebacker Junior Seau, have also suffered from the same condition.

Gladwell, the author of New York Times bestsellers "Outliers: The Story of Success," and "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Difference," called the continuation of the program "a moral abomination". The New Yorker magazine journalist compared the university's disregard of the warnings to the callous indifference of the coal mining industry towards black lung disease.

He mocked their mercenary attitude - "We have to have football. The alumni would be anger if we cancelled the program." He urged students to boycott football games and protest outside.

"Maybe, if there is only 1500 alumni smoking cigars at the game, the university will cancel the program," he said.

He did not call for an outright ban of football, but instead held the university to a higher standard.

"A university's job is to educate and care for students not maximize alumni donations," said an outraged Gladwell.

The university official that closed the event looked uncomfortable, but graciously handled the criticism.

On the way to dinner with Gladwell, he said, "One definition of an intellectual is someone who bites the hands that feeds you,"

It will be interesting to see if Gladwell's cri de couer results in the cancellation of the football program. The students did not seem to embrace Gladwell's suggestion. But it might be because a group of students standing in line to hear an intellectual are not going to football games.

One senior football player said that football had given him many opportunities that he would not normally had.

"Being 270 lbs and 6' 2",  I can not play soccer," he said.

Penn Doctor Cures Leukemia

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Dr. Carl June, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, kicked off Thinkfest by discussing his groundbreaking cure, personalized cell therapy, for leukemia and possible other cancers. The cancer buster previewed his December 10 presentation to the American Society of Hematology (ASH).

Traditionally, leukemia has been treated with a bone marrow transplant. The body often rejects the foreign material resulting in horrible side effects and death. Personalized cell therapy does not have these side effects because it uses the patient's own cells. The patient's T cells are injected with a re-engineered form of the H.I.V-1 virus, which fights cancer instead of spreading AIDS.

So far 12 patients have been treated with this immunotherapy. Chemotherapy was not working for three adult patients with late stage Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). Each patient had between 3.5-7 pounds of tumor. Two of the patients have experienced complete remission and one a partial remission after being injected with the reconfigured T cells a year ago. It is still too soon to tell if the remissions are permanent.

One side effect of the treatment is it prevents the production of infection fighting antibodies. June dismissed this as a relatively minor side effect. "There is a pro football player that does not have antibodies. It only requires a transfusion once a month," he said.

Some of this has been reported by the New York Times and other publications. What is new is that children with acute leukemia are now in remission after a transfusion of re-configured T cells. One Children's Hospital patient, whose body was 76.3% overrun by unhealthy B cells, received the personalized cell therapy on April, 18, 2012. She attended the first day of school on August 29, 2012 disease free.

Next step for Dr. June and his colleagues is FDA approval so that he can cure the world. Pharmaceutical Giant Novartis is building a robot operated lab at the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapies to mix the personalized cell therapies so that a scientist does not have to mix each therapy separately.

Richard Vague, who has endowed a professorship at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine in immunotherapy, said, "Soon, Philadelphia will be known as the place cancer was cured.

I predict a Nobel Prize is in Dr. June's future.  His Power Point presentation is below.

Romney Fundraiser Leder's Next Stop: A Wharton Classroom

I have been told that Marc Leder, the host of the infamous Romney 47% fundraiser, is expected to lecture at  the Wharton School this October. I am just hoping that he is not planning to teach how to throw amazing sex parties, no taxes on fund management fees that should be taxed as ordinary income, or sticking the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation with your pension obligations.

The Sixers part owner might catch a preseason game during his Philadelphia visit.

Besides his lifetime gifts of $1, 845,100 to the University of Pennsylvania, the founder of Sun Capital lectures frequently at Wharton. In addition, he serves on the board of the Huntsman Program for International Studies and Business, which is named for the father of former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.

With annual tuition now over $39,000, the Leder Family Endowed Scholarships helps defray the cost of an University of Pennsylvania education, preferable for incoming Wharton students. He provides financial support to undergraduates enrolled in the Huntsman program for summer immersion language program. In addition, he has made a sizable donation to the Penn Center for Orphan Disease Research.

Thanks to Ronald Ozio, director of media relations for the University of Pennsylvania, for confirming Leder's donations to the University. 

I will have more on Leder's dealing with the New York Attorney General and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation after Yom Kippur. It did not seem right to discuss them on Atonement day.

Emanuel Bets on Favorable Supreme Court Ruling

Knowing the serious side of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the University of Pennsylvania's Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, I was surprised when he disclosed at the Jewish Social Policy Action Network (JSPAN) annual meeting that he had placed 5 bets speculating that the insurance mandate in the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would survive the Supreme Court. Despite making dinner for him, he does not expect that his good friend Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will vote yes. 

Emanuel, who served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the administration when the bill was being drafted, said, "I believe that the mandate will survive. I think the vote will be 6:3 in favor with Kennedy and Roberts voting for. Otherwise, it will be 5:4 against. If that happens, the country will have bigger problems because then it will be a partisan ruling along party lines."

He argues that the commerce clause of the constitution makes the healthcare mandate constitutional. 

"The constitutionality of this clause has been upheld many times," said the doctor. "One example is Heart of Atlanta Motel vs United States. The owner of the hotel, which was on an interstate highway, was forced to integrate."

He continues, "There are already plenty of healthcare mandates. "Vaccinations. No Smoking Laws."

He has a ready answer for those that fear mandating health insurance will mean more mandates, such as requiring funeral coverage. 

"What is so wrong about that? Funerals are expensive," said Emanuel. "I had a poor patient who could not afford to bury her husband. She wanted to donate his body to science. To avoid the costs of a funeral home, she just wanted to drive the body to MIT herself. I had to tell her that it was illegal to transport a dead body in Massachusetts without a special license."


Emanuel is emphatic that if the Supreme Court rules that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional that this country will never again see comprehensive health reform. 


"We have been trying to trying to reform healthcare since Teddy Roosevelt's administration and never succeeded until now," he noted. "If it is over turned again, no one will have the political will to attempt it again."

Emanuel, who is the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy Professor, blames the Republicans for the lack of medical malpractice reform included in the bill. 

"There was no Republican support for the bill so there was no incentive for malpractice reform," explained the doctor. "We talked to Olympia Snowe. We made the changes that she wanted, but she still did not vote for the bill."

According to Emanuel, there is still hope for malpractice reform. A trial program in Michigan, which allows doctors to apologize to patients but not allow the apology be admitted into court, has shown encouraging results. 

Dr. Emanuel turned serious when the discussion turned to end of life counseling aka death panels. 

"My critics named me Dr. Death," said Emanuel. "I am an oncologist. I love to talk, but even I avoid having this talk with my patients. Patients want to have that talk with their doctor."

Emanuel is always ahead of the curve in his thinking about medicine. He is now suggesting that both medical school and residency be cut by one year.  

My one question for Emanuel- Is it ethical for the renowned bioethicist to bet on the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling?