Listen To The Official Trailer 

WHAT: iHeartPodcasts and Best Case Studios today announced “Fallen Angels: A Story of California Corruption.” When investigative reporter Paul Pringle of the LA Times received a tip in the spring of 2016 saying that the powerful dean of USC’s medical school may have been caught up in the overdose of a young woman in a hotel room in Pasadena, California, he expected it to be a “quick spot” story about drugs and bad behavior by a high profile figure – fairly typical, if embarrassing for the University of Southern California. 

But the incident in the hotel ends up leading Pringle and his fellow reporters into a much deeper story, a web of money and influence at two of the most powerful institutions in the city of Los Angeles. 

Throughout 10 thirty-minute episodes, “Fallen Angels: A Story of California Corruption” will go deeper and deeper into the intermingled world of power and privilege. Pringle will host – but he doesn’t simply narrate. In a story that plays like a classic LA noir, Pringle and his fellow journalists — who formed a secret reporting team, out of sight of the Times’ top editors — will investigate the story, turn reluctant witnesses into crucial on the record sources, and meet obstacles and stonewalling at every turn: from USC, from law enforcement, and more troubling still, from their own newspaper. 

Adapted from Pringle’s book Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels, “Fallen Angels” is a journalistic thriller —”Chinatown” meets “Spotlight” — one that takes listeners into the shadows of sunny Los Angeles, where devastating consequences unfold when predators and corruption lurk unchecked.

Executive producers are Pringle, Joe Pichirallo and Adam Pincus for Best Case Studios. 

• Episode 1: The Hotel Constance
• Episode 2: The Trojan Wall
• Episode 3: Company Men
• Episode 4: The Secret Reporting Team
• Episode 5: The Warren Family
• Episode 6: Sarah’s Story
• Episode 7: Publication Day
• Episode 8: Bad Doctors
• Episode 9: The Golden Handshake
• Episode 10: Where are they now?

WHO: Paul Pringle is a Los Angeles Times reporter who specializes in investigating corruption. In 2019, he and two colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for their work uncovering the widespread sexual abuse by Dr. George Tyndall at the University of Southern California, an inquiry that grew out of their reporting the year before on Dr. Carmen Puliafito, dean of USC’s medical school. Pringle was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 and a member of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2004 and 2011. Pringle won the George Polk Award in 2008, the same year the Society of Professional Journalists of Greater Los Angeles honored him as a distinguished journalist. Along with several colleagues, he shared in Harvard University’s 2011 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting. Pringle and a Times colleague won the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s Freedom of Information Award in 2014 and the University of Florida’s Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Award in 2015. Pringle lives in Glendale, California.

WHEN: “Fallen Angels: A story of California Corruption” will be available March 28, with new episodes launching every Thursday. Listen to the official trailer now. 

WHERE: “Fallen Angels: A story of California Corruption” is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and will be available on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere podcasts are heard.

About Best Case Studios

Best Case Studios is a production company that makes premium narrative audio, founded by award-winning producer and executive Adam Pincus. Best Case produces both narrative nonfiction and scripted audio drama and has made shows with ABC, Spotify, Audible, iHeart, A&E Networks, Dow Jones, Cadence 13/Audacy, Exactly Right Media, Stephen Curry’s company Unanimous Media, LitHub and others. Recent projects include the Webby-nominated series “The Greatest Sports Stories Never Told,” “Sound Barrier: Sylvester,” a music-driven documentary series about the trailblazing Queen of Disco, Sylvester James, and “In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson” which was recently adapted as a feature documentary by renowned filmmaker Dawn Porter for ABC News Studios / Hulu.