Sen. Charles E. Grassley is seeking additional information about four liver transplants performed at the UCLA Medical Center involving patients who were suspected members or associates of Japanese organized-crime groups, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Two of the recipients made subsequent donations of $100,000 to UCLA. The university and the surgeon who performed the operations, Ronald W. Busuttil, have released statements saying they do not make moral judgments about patients.

In a letter to UCLA, Senator Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, wrote, “While surgeons do not seek to pass moral judgment on the patients they treat, Americans hope at the very least that foreign criminal figures wait in line along with the rest of us.”

The operations took place from 2000 to 2004, a period when more than 100 patients in the Los Angeles area died waiting for liver transplants. —Charles Huckabee