Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Doctors rape & molest.....but still practice medicine!

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

A investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reveals how sexual abuse by physicians against patients too often goes unreported to criminal authorities and doctors are allowed to continue practicing medicine despite disturbing acts. Nancy Grace talks to AJC editor Kevin Riley and AJC reporter Carrie Teegardin about their newspaper's remarkable report. These cases included "rapes by OB/GYNs, seductions by psychiatrists, fondling by anesthesiologists and ophthalmologists, and molestations by pediatricians and radiologists," according to the report, which you can read at doctors.ajc.com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. It would be hard to imagine any relationship where trust is more important than the relationship between a doctor and a patient. After he would not stop kissing me and fondling my breast and my bra, I was terrified. I was pretty scared. There is a problem among doctors who violate that trust and violate it in ways that are absolutely alarming.

He would put his hand on my leg and literally start walking with his hand up my leg beside the exam table. And he kissed me like nine times. The problem is that the system has massive gaps in it where doctors can commit criminal acts against patients, sometimes on a serial basis, and authorities find out about it, yet they're never turned over to police or prosecutors who could hold them accountable. The hurt that doesn't heal.

Think about that just a moment. The hurt that doesn't heal. Think about that just a moment. The hurt that doesn't heal. You know, I learned that lesson when I would try a case in inner city Atlanta and I would think at the end of that trial that I would have fixed it. But even when I would manage to get a conviction out of a jury and the judge would sentence, I'd turn around to the courtroom and everybody would still have a broken heart. And that's what I learned after my very first jury trial. What about a hurt that doesn't heal? Today, I'm talking about doctors, medical doctors that we trust. You know, if I had a doctor on the stand, I would say, please come in in your scrubs or at least wear your lab jacket. You are a doctor and people look up to you. And when you are on that stand, I want you to live up to every expectation that they have. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. What about when that doctor molests his or her patient? Outright sex molests his or her patient. When I say the hurt that doesn't heal, I am referring to an incredible investigation. I am referring to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in-depth, really undercover investigation of doctors who still have their medical license that have molested their patients. And there's no doubt about it that it happened. With me, an incredible person that I met in the flesh on the Dr. Oz set,

Kevin Riley, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Also with me, investigative reporter from the AJC, Carrie Teagarden, and LA psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany Marshall, also with me, Alan Duke in LA, Jackie Howard in Atlanta, and of course, you joining us here on Sirius XM 132. I want to first point out that everyone has been reading about, believe it or not, the US,S. This is not Russia. This is not some other country far, far away that we can go, huh, that would never happen here. The Olympic official that molested the stars of the girls' gymnastics team, the Olympic coach molestation, that has turned everybody on their ear. I'm talking about superstars claiming that this doctor has molested them. And it's not just claim. He has been sentenced to 60 years, a gymnastics doctor, a doctor who abused patients, first of all, gets 60 years for child

porn. His name, Dr. Lawrence Nassar. Now that certainly sent shockwaves through the world. Two gymnasts, famous gymnasts, in tears describing how the Olympic, U.S. Olympic doctor molested them. And the claims keep coming. To Kevin Riley, AJC editor, what led you to investigate medical doctors that molest their patients, Kevin? One of our reporters, Danny Robbins, had done a story about a doctor who was in charge of the care of women in Georgia's prisons. And as he was doing that story, I uncovered that that doctor appeared to be responsible for some very serious issues.

And there were patients who had died. Oh, my stars. Kevin, is this a male doctor? Yes, absolutely. Okay, right there. Okay, I don't like it right there. I don't like a male doctor being in a female prison. Yes, absolutely. of a doctor you know so they're stuck with a male doctor i don't like that to start with but you know i'm not saying male doctors aren't great i've got a male doctor that i credit saving my life but kevin riley sorry carrie tea garden uh reporter for all the times you wanted to interrupt

your boss i'm getting to just do that today okay kevin hop back in sorry about that so there's a male doctor and okay take well what happened, as the reporter was reviewing all the medical records that led to that story, he found out that in Georgia, 80 doctors who had sexually abused patients, including patients that were undergoing just routine exams and under anesthesia, still had their medical licenses in Georgia. So he said, wow, we should look into this. We should find out what happens to doctors in Georgia and other states when they're accused of sexual offenses,

because how could these people maintain their licenses? And that's really how we got started on the story, and it led to a nationwide investigation where we looked at doctors in every state across the country. So it all started with Kevin Riley, the Atlanta Journal of Constitution. You can go online, guys, and see this. It's called The Hurt That Doesn't Heal. And it's very disturbing if you've got the guts to look at it.

And I'm a firm believer in not turning away from the truth, even if it doesn't go down very easily. Kevin Riley says he found 80 doctors right off the bat that were still treating patients that had been accused of wrongdoing. We're talking about doctors. And this is these are not just allegations. These are not just allegations. These are complaints to medical boards and more where the doctors are still out there practicing on patients, lady patients and others, to carry Teagarden after he discovers,

the reporter discovers, just 80 right off the top. Then where do you go with this investigation? How did it launch nationwide and what did you find? Well, the first thing we found is that states don't really keep track of this. We thought we could go around every state and find out, hey, how many of these doctors do you have who've done this and how have you handled them? No, no one really bothered to keep track of it. So we decided we had to go in and do that. And that involves basically using a lot of computer programming to get medical board orders from every state. We looked at 100,000 medical board orders, basically doctors disciplined for all sorts of things from malpractice to basically being drug

dealers to sex abuse. We were able to find 3,000 cases where doctors had been found and disciplined for sexually sexual misconduct. And, but the other thing we found, Nancy, was that that's probably just the tip of the iceberg we found a lot of states disciplined doctors for these things in private including here in Georgia they treat it more like a illness than a you know than a actual crime so we found that you know and we found that of those that were even actually publicly disciplined, most were still allowed to keep practicing. Pauline Trumpy Evans was just 24 living in Wisconsin, and she went to her psychiatrist for several months, and she told the psychiatrist

she no longer needed treatment for anxiety. On her final visit, her doctor, she says, offered her a drug to assist her therapy. Instead, she says, the drug knocked her out and her own doctor raped her. Her own doctor raped her. To top it all off, she became pregnant. She went to police. He was not charged, but gave up his license. Five weeks later, he got

it back, according to the Medical Board Minutes. She asked for the minutes and gave them to the AJC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Carrie Teagarden, what happened to the doctor that reportedly raped Pauline Trumpy Evans after giving her a knockout drug. Well, you know, that was interesting because she reached out to us after the series first started. I will never forget getting an email from her, like many people we heard from after that. It was not unusual at all for even in cases involving rape that happen in exam rooms that doctors could get their license back. It's not unusual. And we'd see sometimes people would, under pressure, voluntarily surrender their license. But, you know, you would think in a case of rape,

someone would probably serve time or at least face a criminal allegation. But in many states, you know, you don't have to. The medical board is under no obligation to even report to police when a crime is reported to them. That's one of many things that we found out. I'm just overwhelmed that because you're a medical doctor, you can get away with this. To Kevin Riley, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has commissioned an incredible investigation of doctors all across the country that have been charged with molesting their patients and are still practicing today. Kevin, we discussed one case where a doctor actually drugged lollipops and gave them to his child patients and then molested them, even on video. You know, Nancy, it's important to remember something that Carrie mentioned, which is these are crimes.

But under a lot of the practices of medical boards across the country, they're never reported to police. That is astounding, because in any other profession, teaching and other professions, you would immediately be suspended, potentially lose your license, not to mention charged with a crime. That does not happen to doctors, and that is the big problem here. The other thing is what it does to patients when that trust in a doctor is violated. I mean, is there any more important, intimate, trusting relationship than what you have with your doctor? And then it's violated people, vulnerable people are taken advantage of, and they feel like they have nowhere to turn. I mean, one of the things that we have done on our website, myajc.com, is given a list of resources for people.

If this happens to someone, what can you do? What are the steps that you can take? And that's really important because when we heard from victims after we published this series, one of the things we heard very consistently was simply, thank you. I thought I was all alone. I thought I was the only person this happened to. I am reading an article, and what I have read is so disturbing.

And it starts with a quote. What the hell are you doing, bastard? His patient's mother screamed when she found Dr. Bradley with his hand in her daughter's diaper. And following her out to the parking lot, the doctor insisted she, the mom, didn't see what she thought she saw. And when police were called by the mom, he told police that the mom was trying to coerce money out of him. Okay, they decide that the mom who was young and poor and unmarried was trying to get money from the doctor. Nobody believed the woman.

The case was closed. That doctor, Earl Bradley, went on to become one of the nation's most prolific sex predators. For over 15 years, he raped, sodomized, and molested pediatric patients, child patients, and even recorded 13 hours of sex assaults on children, sometimes so violent he had to resuscitate the child victims. He managed to escape gossip, investigators, colleagues that would call him openly the pedophile pediatrician. And before he finally went to jail, he victimized that we know of 1,200 children. Their average age was three. The youngest that we know of was three months old. Carrie Teagarden, joining me, investigative reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, her boss, Kevin Riley, the

editor of the AJC, sent her on a mission to investigate, uncover doctors that molest their patients. Kerry Teagarden, I'm sure you're familiar with the case of Dr. Bradley that I just described. He actually even drugged lollipops to make the children pass out. Through interviews, police reports, files, records, the AJC, Atlanta Journal of Constitution, documented eight instances where Bradley was the subject of accusations, and each time, nothing happened, and he avoided punishment. Carrie Teagarden, let's talk about Bradley for just one moment. Bradley is a really disturbing case, but I mean, just the idea, you know, that a pediatrician would do that to children so young is just really hard for anybody to even believe that a doctor would do that, right? And one thing we really took away from Bradley is that there were all these chances to stop him.

You know, there were nurses who came forward that said, look, he looks for any excuse to catheterize these little girls, you know, when it's not necessary and things like that, where it was just, you know, clear that it wasn't appropriate. He would also like take, it would be like at the end of appointment, he would take the children in another room and say, oh, I'm taking them to get their little toy, you know. And so the parents would be like, oh, okay, that's so nice, you know. And even with, you just see over and over again, it just wasn't believed, right? I mean, all those times when he could have been stopped. You know, what's interesting about that case is that the only reason he probably isn't practicing today and is in prison is that he videotaped himself doing these acts for hours. And so that's where

they have evidence. I mean, even some cops dismissed it early on, as you mentioned, Nancy, but then later on when he was being investigated, they just found it was very hard to make the case because, um, as you know, a three-year-old victim is not credible, right? I mean, that's just a difficult case to make. And this happened in Delaware, which went to great extent to really look at, you know, how did this happen, and as a result, they ended up passing what we believed and rated them as having the

best patient protection laws in the country on this kind of thing, only because they saw what could happen. I mean, 1200 children, it's just hard to even believe that. I know it's just so overwhelming that we know of 1200 and no one would listen to Dr. Bethany Marshall, LA psychoanalyst. You know, for instance, when children come to spend the night in our house, or I'm with children, and we're all changing to go to gym class or something, I just naturally turn away. I don't want to look at them changing clothes. I want them to go in the bathroom and shut the door. It's instinctive. I don't really think it through. And I don't even put two little girls in the same bathroom unless they run in and out on their own. I just don't even, it's just natural. I don't think, I don't

want to see them without their clothes on. You know, I don't understand this, Dr. Bethany. And I don't understand why a parent would leave their child alone with a doctor. But you know what? I trust my doctors. I love my doctors. But Dr. Bethany, can I tell you something? We had a doctor that everybody in my neighborhood went to when we were little, and all the girls would talk about it. And to this day, we still talk about it, how he would comment on your body, make little comments during an unnecessary pelvic exam. We all laugh about it now. But when I really think about it, I don't laugh, Dr. Bethany. It's true, Nancy. I had a doctor like that, too, when I was a little

girl, and he looked at me inappropriately, never really touched or fondled. But I think back in that era where our consciousness wasn't raised, we just thought of these men as perverts or just sort of mildly crossing the line. But I shudder now to think what kind of victims are out there. You know, what you're saying about children in your house, you know, because the twins are 10, right? Is that how old they are? That at that age, a child has a sense of privacy, doesn't want to be exposed, doesn't want adults to see them without their clothes on, but they're not going to say it to you. You just have to be sensitive as an adult to give them their privacy. One of the things about this pedophile doctor that

you're talking about is that the offending pattern was so prolific. And we know about sex predators that they gravitate towards positions that are going to allow them to have access to their victims. And in these cases, child victims obviously cannot speak up for themselves. So what is going to happen after a sex assault is that they're going to be symptomatic. They may cry a lot, withdraw, have problems with bedwetting, behavioral problems. But if the parents don't know what they're looking for, the parents don't know how to interpret the symptoms. I think the best policy for parents is to never leave a child alone with anybody. Do not leave a three- leave a child alone with anybody. Do not leave a three-year-old alone with a pediatrician no matter what.

Listen to Dr. Bethany. Guys, I would never have known the extent of doctors who molest medical doctors if it had not been for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has done an extensive nationwide investigation to find this out. Kevin Riley with me, the editor of the AJC, also with me, investigative reporter with the AJC, Carrie Teagarden. You can read and hear all of this at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution online. I want to pause and thank not only you for joining me here, joining us here, But I want to thank our partners, our partners that make our shining a light on this incredible investigation by the AJC today. One of our awesome partners, Link AKC.

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And now back to the AJC investigation of medical doctors accused and even found guilty of molesting their patients, specifically women and children, and they keep practicing medicine. Yeah, right. You could be crawling up on somebody's examination table that's been molesting people. That's not a happy thought. Kevin Riley, AJC editor, I know it's going to be hard to pick, but which of these cases disturbed you the most? really got a lot of attention or I think grabbed readers' attention was we have the story of one woman who describes a doctor basically assaulting and molesting her, and she came out of the influence of anesthesia after a procedure. And he told her that this was just how they helped her come out of the anesthesia. She was a big voice in our story.

She's a big voice of dealing with this issue. But the reason that example stands out is it shows how vulnerable a patient can be because you have to trust your doctor if you're going to have a procedure and you need to be sedated somehow. I mean, who's there to protect you if doctors are allowed to behave this way? Listen to this. I remember him kissing me on the lips and then manipulating, physically manipulating my hand to basically rub him. And he told me at that time when I was very hazy, he said,

it's okay, this is just how we wake you up. I felt ashamed myself because I thought, thought if it was a dream how disgusting why would my mind be be giving me that information when I was unconscious or very heavily sedated and because I have worked in in hospitals before I assumed that it couldn't happen. That is from the AJC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, to Carrie Teagarden joining us, Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigative reporter. Am I wrong, but I thought there was supposed to be a nurse present in an examination room. That's correct. It's not required in every state, but it is definitely recommended in all states and is required in many, including Georgia, where if you're having an intimate exam, there has to be a second person there. But that's often a red flag. If a doctor isn't doing that, that's the cause for concern because we saw a lot of things happen in those situations. A License to Betray.

That's the title of one part of the series in the AJC about a broken system that forgives doctors that sexually abuse in every state. And one of the doctors that Carrie Teagarden writes about is from Kentucky. In Kentucky, Dr. Allure was examining an infection on a patient's abdomen when he, the whole thing went sideways. He told the patient she had sexy underwear. Well, I'm not really in danger of that because, okay, Jackie's laughing because the twins say mom please buy some new underwear I'm like I'm not getting any new underwear until you two graduate from graduate school okay and I finish helping pay for your wedding okay so then mommy will get a new pair of underwear at Target okay and until then it's not happening but wait a minute the doctor on a serious note tells the patient she

has sexy underwear well at that minute right there I would sit up and go what what did you say okay but listen to this then the doctor places his mouth on her genitals and says it was so beautiful. I couldn't resist. Okay, Carrie Teagarden, have I lost my mind, or did this really happen? It really happened. She did go to the police, and, you know, the way these cases are most often successfully prosecuted is if they get the doctor, the patient to confront the doctor, you know, on a recorded line. And, you know, he admitted it to her that way. And so they were able to pursue the case. But the irony is that he was allowed to keep practicing. And there was a lot

more to the case. He had other issues too with prescribing and malpractice, but what we found out in some states, you know, the laws are kind of stacked in favor of the doctors. It can be hard even when a medical board wants to revoke a license to do it or to make it last for very long, and so in that case, you know, they put him under some restrictions. We'll see that, but he's still practicing. He's still practicing. There is another doctor featured in the Atlanta Journal of Constitution, a doctor that was accused of molesting a little boy years ago in Boston. And when he would hear his name called, the little boy in the waiting room would look up at his mom and say, I'm not going in. I'm not going in. And she couldn't understand. And she said, you're here to see Dr. Rick, the friendly resident in training that gave him so much

attention when he was hospitalized, who gave him a football jersey, a footballist presence. And I'm quoting straight from an investigation, an investigational piece in the AJC. The boy says, no, he makes me get naked and it hurts. This is recalled by a man now grown and his mother as he interviewed with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That doctor, a Dr. Richard Bonner, is a pediatric anesthesiologist, and just recently the family publicly accused him of child molestation and filed a lawsuit that he molested the child on the examination table. Now, let me point out that the doctor has denied the accusations completely, totally denied them.

In the investigations, Kevin Riley, do the doctors typically deny the accusations? Not only that, but we actually have a piece on our website where we look at the excuses that doctors offered. And among the highlights include that one doctor who was accused of molesting a patient said he could see it in her eyes that the patient wanted to have sex with him. Another doctor convinced a patient that having sex with him was a therapeutic technique that he used. And others would just offer excuses like they were under a lot of stress or a woman had control over them or they just made a little mistake. And it's important to remember in all of this, and if people read our series, they'll see in Kerry's writing that we describe this stuff in blunt terms. I mean, people like to use terms like molestation or sexual misconduct.

This is assault, and this is rape, and this is a crime, and there are no excuses for it. And people may deny it, but in many cases, the proof is just overwhelming. What is lacking is the commitment of medical boards to really take this issue on, and also this problem with people being afraid to confront. And not only that, Dr. Bethany Marshall, LA psychoanalyst joining me, the mother, the mother is wracked with guilt. She said that she is overcome with guilt, that she just was so focused on getting her son well.

She didn't understand what was happening. Can you imagine a mother's guilt of this happening? I can't imagine because as we so frequently talk about on your show, a mother's job is to protect their child, right? And when a predator is able to get in and sort of pierce the boundary of protectiveness that a mother has towards a child. Well, it's interesting because then not only is the child traumatized, but the mother's traumatized too. I was reading through the literature on post-traumatic stress disorder this morning before the show, just in preparation. And in the DSM, one of the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder is witnessing another person going through a traumatic event. So you

don't even have to be the person who's molested. You can be the parent or a sibling, and then you either witness it or there's the ripple effect of that patient's trauma. And, you know, something else stood out about all these stories. I think Carrie's reporting is so wonderful because the patients who were molested talk about the mistrust of relationships throughout the lifespan. That's one thing that really struck me. Avoidance of medical care because they didn't trust doctors. And then the one patient who was impregnated and then had to give the child up for adoption or decided to do that, talks about the fact that so much of her energy and creativity went towards managing the trauma and that she tried to imagine that if she hadn't been molested by her doctor, where else could she have put that

energy? And I thought that was a really good point that all of these victims now spend enormous amounts of time managing the trauma, the fallout from these events in their life. And thus, their energy is not freed up to make contributions towards society in other ways. So it's just one more evidence of the ripple effect of these sex predators. I want you to hear what an undercover agent said who had to pose as a patient to try to get evidence against the doctor that investigators believe abused at least, sexually abused,

at least 80 patients. Listen. at least sexually abused at least 80 patients listen I went over there about three o'clock in the afternoon and I asked about having an appointment with him for hypnosis and he came out front and he literally looked me up and down he I mean he scanned me up and down with his eyes and then told me to come back that night at nine o'clock. I had never in my life had a doctor tell me to come in at 9 o'clock at night. That evening when we went back, of course there were other agents with me and I was wired too, and when I went back there were no cars in the parking lot whatsoever. There was only one light on in the building and when I opened up the door and went in he was waiting on

me at the front desk. Took me back to the back room where an examining room and one of the first things that I had noticed was that there were locks on the doors of each of the examining rooms. When I went into the exam room he had one of those little roll-around trays and there were two syringes on it and we later found out when that was sent to the lab that one was a drug that would have knocked me out another was a drug that would have brought me back because he was an anesthesiologist so I commented on the syringes to make them know that there were there were drugs there and he said well we may not need

those he had me get up on the table and he started with his hypnosis thing and as soon as he thought I was hypnotized the first words out of his mouth he wanted to know how old was I the first time I had sex and what was the person's name that I had sex with. And so when I answered his questions, he said, when you wake up and you look at me, you're going to think that I'm the first person you ever had sex and you're going to want me. You're going to want to be with me." And he would put his hand on my leg and literally start walking with his hand up my leg beside the exam table. And he kissed me like nine times while we were in there. And each time he did this I would say, you kissed me, you kissed me, because I wanted the guys outside to understand what was going on too. And I sat up and I kept pretending that I was going in and out of hypnosis and that he

couldn't keep me hypnotized and he was getting frustrated with that. He didn't like that. Then he put his hand on my leg and he ran his hand all the way up under my skirt and he ran it between my legs and as soon as he did that I had him for sexual battery and I knew that. And so there was no doubt in my mind that he was doing the things that we had been told that he was doing. And when they brought him in, he did not realize, you know, why he was being arrested at that point. He didn't realize it had to do with me.

I was in the other room, and when I walked in, the look on his face, I mean it was just, he had dark skin and he literally turned white when he realized what was going on. After he was arrested, there was a newspaper article as well as some things done on TV about it and we just asked any woman who had ever had a problem with him, you know, if they had anything they wanted to tell us to please come forward. And we had 80 women that came forward. They were anywhere from 16 years old up until their 60s. In the end, after the trial was over, he got 50 years. That is from the undercover investigation that has been exposed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And there are so many more cases.

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Super Beets, thank you for being our partner today as we explore one of the most damning investigative reports I have ever seen. This conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And with me, the editor of the AJC, Kevin Riley. Kevin, this piece that you published in the AJC, and it's online. That's where I'm getting it. I'm reading it bit by bit online. There's so many layers to it. How big is the piece?

How many clicks do I have to read? You know, Nancy, we've probably got this covered as well as it possibly could be. I think the best parts of the investigation, though, are the very personal stories you will find from women who decided that they wanted their stories known so that this thing would not happen to other people. In that case you just described where the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent went undercover, they eventually identified about 80 victims from the age of 16 to 60. And the agent even described this doctor's practice. She said it was like an organized rape center.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Kevin Riley, the editor of the AJC, along with Carrie Teagarden, an Atlanta Journal of Constitution investigative reporter. I'm drinking from the fire hydrant here. It's just so much. I just got to slow down a moment. You know, Kevin, when I would prosecute, let's just say a murder case, but every case that involved an expert, I would have to go to the morgue, sit down with the doctor that did the ME, and go through the autopsy report, which sometimes could be, you know, 7 to 20 pages long.

I would have to go through every single line, sometimes each word, if they were medical terms, so I could understand it. And in the columns columns I would book brief that's what we did in law school very often instead of writing a full brief you'd book brief in the columns the side columns of your case that you were reading I'd book brief the autopsy so I could break it down and understand it in simple terms, you just said that this doctor's practice was called a what? The agent who did that undercover work called it an organized rape center. An organized rape center.

You know what I'm thinking about, Carrie Teagarden? All the rapes and the child molestations that I prosecuted him. Sometimes, if I let my mind go there, it still makes me just break down and cry what these victims went through and what they will go through the rest of their lives. I mean, I'm a crime victim, a violent crime, and I know it affected the rest of my life.

You know, Carrie, after my fiance was murdered, it took me almost 30 years before I could bring myself to try to make a full on real commitment. Because in my mind, it would just all blow up on me and everything would go sideways and my whole world would get torn apart. And just frankly, I just didn't want the pain. And I almost lost the chance to have children because of my delay. That's just one example. But these ladies and children that were raped and sodomized, the rest of their lives, they go through a feeling of helplessness. They couldn't fight back. They were victimized. It messes up all their relationships. From then on, Carrie, and then to top it all off, in these cases that you investigated with the AJC,

it was a person that everybody respects. Nobody wants to believe them. They believe the doctor, Carrie. One thing that was really troubling was how often the victims were already vulnerable or had been damaged previously. And then some of these doctors would capitalize on that. This one case that always stuck with me, we never even used this in the store. We had so many cases, you know, there were so many that we couldn't even include. But it was a doctor who knew his patient had been sexually abused by her father as a child. And doctors kind of know stuff about you because you have to tell them about yourself and what you're dealing with. So the ones who go off the rails will use that.

And so he got her into a sexual relationship with him and during relations would say to her, oh, is this how it was with your father? You know, is this what you did with your father? Which I thought was just so terrible. And in the real heavy part of the reporting for this project, there were a group of us who did nothing all day, every day for weeks, but read these cases. And it was very troubling. I think that was the most important part of the series, where we read cases hours after hours every day, because it really told us how bad it could get and then what the response would be. And that doctor I just talked about, when he was reported,

the board viewed it that he had an illness issue. He was sent off to kind of a recovery center to do yoga and art so he could develop a sense of empathy, and so he could eventually go back to practice. Yoga and art. Dr. Bethany Marshall, his sorry framework needs to be in jail with the other rapist. Absolutely. Yoga and art. I think the problem is, and this is something that we've been talking about lately on your show, is that this is not just sexual

predation. It's not just sexual harassment. It is rape. It's a crime. You don't, you know, if someone robs a bank, do you try to rehabilitate them through yoga and art? Absolutely not. These crimes have to fall into the same category. 100,000 disciplinary orders against doctors. And among those identified over 3,000 doctors sanctioned after being accused of sex misconduct. And what that means, sex misconduct is sodomy, rape, sex assault. And thousands of those doctors had violations involving their own patients. Half of those still have medical licenses today. Half of them still are practicing. Over half of them. Why?

That's my question. Why are they licensed to rape? And get away with it. Listen to this. Tara Patrice and her husband had just moved to Louisville a few months prior to this happening. She has a degenerative bone disease and she had been referred to Kiesa Rahr by another doctor and she was in the exam room. Sounds like it wasn't but a few minutes before he forced himself on her. Not only hip surgery, I had a fall the first of January. So I had a fractured right knee.

I had a fractured clavicle. And my left shoulder was already collapsed completely. I needed it replaced. It was collapsed. So I was excruciating pain from all of that, trying to fight him off. And this whole body weighed on me. There wasn't really much I could do other than scream for help Which you know no one came so he would continue to kiss me

He ripped my bra Particularly he was kissing my left breast a lot After he would not stop kissing me and finally my breast and my bra were ripped, I was terrified. I was pretty scared. I was actually really scared at that point. I guess he found a soft place in his heart. I don't know if I should say that, but he allowed me to adjust myself. That's when I realized, yes, he was playing with himself as well and masturbating. This may be hard to believe, but she was actually thinking on her feet in the moment, right after this happened, and was able to start collecting DNA evidence, like tissues he was wiping himself off with, the $ dollar bill he threw at her even had some DNA on it

and she didn't know it at the time but she even had DNA evidence on her sweatshirt because I was drug and I was date raped when I was 19 years old I wasn't able to report it immediately I was I was out of it I guess there were no evidence and I took it out I made made the note. I promised. I said if it ever happens to me again, I will not let the son of a bitch walk away. I will not let him get away with it. That's what was going through my mind. That I'm not, I've just been sexually assaulted. I'm not leaving here unless if I... She was convinced that it was not the first time he'd ever done it. That it had to be

something he'd done several times before. And that's why she decided to go on the news a couple days later, on the advice of her private attorney, and make a plea for other people to come forward. And sure enough, some did. That is from the investigative piece by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that encompasses all 50 states. This is your state. Your state is included in this Atlanta Journal Constitution piece. So, Kevin Riley, you're the editor. Tell me, what do you do if you think this has happened to you or your child? Well, the first thing to remember, as we've said, is it is a crime. You can go to the police and report this. And again, a lot of these patients

are vulnerable people. They are making accusations against a doctor who's probably a prominent person in that community. But it is important that people know they can go to the police. They can report it to the state medical board. If it happens at a hospital or a clinic or with a doctor affiliated with such a place, they can also go to those organizations. And there are also a number of advocacy organizations that people can go to. All of these resources for patients are listed at our website, myajc.com. So if someone's listening to this and it's happened to them and they're not sure what to do, those resources are available at our website. But the most important thing for people to know is

if it feels like they're all alone and they believe this only happened to them, they're almost certainly going to find out that predator doctors have a lot of victims. And once someone comes forward, other people often do. It reminds me of the current Harvey Weinstein thing, investigation, because once one person had the guts to stand up, then suddenly there was a flood of alleged victims coming forward. Now, of course, the vast majority of doctors, like people, are good. I love my doctors, the doctors I have as an adult, and I love my children's doctors. Of course, I stay in there with them, but I love my doctors, but there is no doubt in my mind that this has happened, and most likely far beyond, far beyond the extent of the AJC article

because these are just the people that actually made a claim, that realized what had happened to them, that did wake up during anesthesia, that they figured out what was happening to their three-year-old. How many thousands, tens of thousands of people never said a word? Carrie Teagarden, investigative reporter, AJC. How can a person, a regular person, check out their doctor? It's pretty tough, Nancy, in part because of what you just said,

that a lot of the time that's not reported, people are confused when it happens. But I do encourage people to look at their state medical board website to just see if their doctor has ever been disciplined. You can also see interesting information about whether somebody is board certified and just other background information. And every state licenses doctors at the state level. So it's worth checking out. Otherwise, it's kind of hard. I think a good thing to do is familiarize yourself with things

like state requirements. Like if I'm having an intimate exam, should there be someone else in the room? And don't hesitate to ask for that. You know, if something feels uncomfortable, you know, it's worth getting up and walking out. I mean, doctors are supposed to kind of explain why they're doing certain things. And so if you're in an exam where something's happening and it's not clearly explained, then that can also be a red flag as well. I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Stories signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.