It started with a tip, one that “hinted at something so salacious, so depraved, so outrageous, that it seemed too good to be true.”

The tip involved an unconscious young woman, an influential dean of the medical school at the University of Southern California and a hotel room full of drugs. A photographer passed along the tip to Paul Pringle, a veteran investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Pringle was determined to unravel what occurred that Friday afternoon at the Hotel Constance in Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. His quest turned into a fierce battle with the editors of his newspaper, city and police officials, and a prominent university.