Research Chelation Therapy

By DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
A University of Miami employee exacted revenge on his boss by secretly exposing him to liquid mercury fumes, turning the man’s skin red and causing a mysterious rash over his entire body, police say.
Robert Nathan Friedlander, a specialist with the school’s collections department, was jailed late Wednesday on a charge of felony battery.
Police say he sprinkled liquid mercury in the office cubicle of Albert O. Williams, the department’s associate director.
Williams told Coral Gables detectives Friedlander had been feuding with him because of a written reprimand, issued for cursing.
Friedlander had also been overheard saying, ”That’s what happens when you put a black in a position of power,” according to a police report.
Williams is black. Friedlander, who is white, confessed, police say.
Neither man could be reached for comment.
Williams also told police that Friedlander had prostate cancer last year and fought it using an experimental treatment ”consisting of mercury.” Investigators are still trying to determine exactly from where Friedlander, 58, obtained the mercury.
Mercury poisoning can be lethal in large enough doses. It can damage the liver, brain and kidney.
During a five-month investigation, detectives tried without success to catch Friedlander in the act with hidden video cameras. They arrested him Wednesday night at his house in Pinecrest.
The lead detective is David Carranza. The investigation is ongoing.
Friedlander was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. He posted $5,000 bond Thursday and was released.
The bizarre case began in April, when Williams was hospitalized with a mysterious rash over his body.
He suffered ”a pink peeling rash, dizziness, weakness, fever, chills, swelling of the joints and a headache,” according to a Coral Gables police report.
Doctors were baffled. Williams spent three days in the hospital.
On April 26, the day after his release, he returned to his office at 1320 S. Dixie Highway. He noticed a ‘’substance” on his chair and wiped it off with his bare hands.
Williams later ”noticed that the skin on the inside of his hand was red in color,” the report said. Later that day, his gold wedding band had turned silver.
The next day, when Williams came back from lunch he found the same substance on the chair, along with a pile of strange ashes.
This time cleaning it up with a paper towel, Williams ended the day by locking his door so janitors wouldn’t clean the room. He called the school’s department of environmental health and safety.
A safety inspector determined there was a ”high concentration” of mercury in the office.

Williams called police. He told detectives of strange goings-on:
Friedlander had recently asked him for his middle name and date of birth, saying he was ‘’speaking on the phone with someone who needed that information.” And Friedlander had been seen going in and out of his boss’s office.
Safety inspectors also found high levels of mercury in the cubicle of another co-worker, Sandra Louis-Paul-Noel.
Her connection to the case, if any, is unclear.
The University of Miami, citing school policy, declined to comment.