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Elliot M. Gross was an American forensic pathologist who has served as the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City from 1979 until 1989 under the Koch administration.

Biography
Elliot M. Gross, the son of a pediatrician graduated from Columbia College and N.Y.U. School of Medicine. Gross also worked as the chief of the aerospace pathology branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington as well as a captain in the Air Force Reserve. He became chief medical examiner after replacing Dr. Michael M Baden in 1979. Previously, he had been the chief medical examiner of Connecticut for nine years. He headed the Medical Examiners office in 1979 and performed the controversial autopsies such as Graffiti artist Michael Stewart, Eleanor Bumpers, and Nicholas Bartlett, all killed by police officers. He has performed over 7000 autopsies, most notably Ex-Beatles member John Lennon. In 2003, He retired.

Controversy
The reliability of the Medical Examiners office was questioned at this time because Gross and his staff were accused by several defense lawyers and forensic specialists of producing misleading or inaccurate autopsy findings in police custody cases and giving misleading testimony in trials." On January 28, 1985 Mayor Koch and Governor Cuomo ordered state and city agencies to investigate the allegations against the Medical Examiners office and Gross. In July 1985, Dr. Elliot Gross took a leave of absence following eleven charges of incompetence filed by the State Health Department. Although he was cleared of the charges filed by the State department, an administrative law judge ruled against their decision stating they lacked jurisdiction on the grounds that performing autopsies is not a practice of medicine.

There was an internal investigation of the Chief Medical Examiners office beginning in 1986 due to an increased number of allegations of misconduct, misleading causes of deaths and covering up evidence of police brutality. In 1986, two medical examiners were questioned following an investigation of the Chief Medical Examiner's office by the Department of Investigation about their certification of deaths on the scene. There had been no inspector general for the Medical Examiner office at the time so there was no quality control. There were 2600 cases in the backlogs of the records and toxicology units. There was hiring of new staff in evidence, communications, identification and mortuary units and half a dozen new medical examiners. Increased inquiry allowed for major changes in mortuary to be implemented to ensure efficiency such as hospital wristbands vs. toe tags and medical examiner identifying numbers to ensure accuracy and reduce search time. The New York Times reported "the facilities were poorly maintained and disorganized and evidence in criminal cases were not handled in accordance with any identifiable system which assures quality control, accuracy, reliability, security, or availability."

After a five year investigation, Gross was cleared of 11 charges of negligence, misconduct and incompetence stemming from nine autopsies, including several that involved people who died in police custody. He moved on to be a pathologist with the Lake County Coroners office in Crown Point, Indiana.