A San Jacinto man who authorities believe masqueraded as an employee at three Southern California hospitals and used insider knowledge to enter secure areas stole $300,000 worth of surgical equipment and skin grafts, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.
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Jason Brauner, 47, has been charged with burglary, grand theft and receiving stolen property, Superior Court records show. Brauner pleaded not guilty to all charges on Aug. 8. A hearing to determine whether the case will be heard in Veterans Court, where charges could be dismissed after a defendant completes a counseling program, has been scheduled for Friday, Aug. 15.
Brauner, who was arrested on Aug. 6, remains held in lieu of $100,000 bail at the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.
The National Organ Transplant Act, passed by Congress in 1984, makes it illegal in the United States to buy and sell human tissues. Fees may be charged to cover the cost of processing the tissues.
Grafts of skin, coming from either deceased donors or the patients themselves, are used to cover or replace damaged or missing skin after a patient has suffered burns or other trauma or who is undergoing reconstructive surgery.
Ashley Davis, communications director for the American Association of Tissue Banks, which supports the advancement of tissue bank technology and promotes the safe and legal use of tissue transfers, said the theft of skin grafts is “very rare.” She couldn’t imagine who would buy stolen skin grafts. Hospitals acquire them through licensed and accredited tissue banks.
Davis said a disaster causing massive numbers of injuries could strain local resources, but she said she is unaware of any agencies that have purchased stolen skin grafts. She said she didn’t know the value of a graft.
“There’s no legitimate medical market for stolen grafts,” Davis said. “The industry takes security very seriously.”
Jason Brauner, 47, of San Jacinto, stole surgical equipment from Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach and a facility in Loma Linda, among other hospitals, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said. Brauner has pleaded not guilty to burglary and other charges.
(Courtesy of Riverside County Sheriff’s Department)
A sworn affidavit written by a sheriff’s deputy to increase bail said Brauner had been selling stolen items on Facebook and OfferUp and feared he would use the proceeds to post bail and then flee. A judge then increased bail to $100,000 from $50,000. The deputy had asked for $500,000 bail.
The affidavit said that on July 5, an employee in the operating area of Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage saw a man she did not recognize acting suspiciously. When she confronted him, he said a janitorial supervisor had permitted him to be there.
Surveillance images from a previous day showed a man later identified as Brauner entering the hospital wearing blue scrubs and a surgical mask.
“The subject roams in the area of the operating room where the boxes of skin grafts were stored,” the affidavit said. “It appeared that the subject was waiting for employees to open the security doors (which only open through scanning passes) and sneak through the facility to gain access to the operating room.”
The person carried a trash bag with him and put it in the trunk of his car when he left.
The same person had infiltrated the hospital twice in June, the affidavit said.
The security director told the deputy that he believed the man was Brauner, who once worked at the hospital as an employee of HHS, which provides culinary, cleaning, facilities management and other services to hospitals. It was unclear on Wednesday what Brauner’s job was or when he worked there. An Eisenhower spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
The deputy obtained a cell phone number for Brauner, and a judge allowed the deputy to track Brauner through cell tower data. On Aug. 6, he located Brauners’ car at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Officials there reviewed security footage and said a man had stolen medical equipment.
License plate readers detected a black Lexus with a Utah license plate near the hospital that was registered to Brauner, the affidavit said. That Lexus was later tracked to San Jacinto. The next day, the deputy tracked Brauner to Del Mar, where San Diego County sheriff’s deputies arrested Brauner.
The deputy wrote that he found medical equipment in the Lexus that had been stolen from Hoag.
Brauner was also linked to thefts of medical equipment in Loma Linda, Utah and Nevada, the deputy wrote. Briana Pastorino, a spokeswoman for Loma Linda University Medical Center, declined to comment on the report, citing the ongoing investigation.
The deputy wrote that Brauner had been convicted of burglary and grand theft in 2024.
The Sheriff’s Department asks anyone with information on the case to call Deputy Marco Castaneda at 760-836-1600.
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