Saturday, February 7, 2009

More victims come forward in sexual abuse case against plastic surgeon

This story exemplifies the tendency of victims to remain silent. Only when other women came forward were the majority of these victims compelled to tell their stories. How many victims remain silent forever, allowing these sexual predators to continue their abuse? It takes courage to be the first to blow the whistle, and too often, it isn't worth the additional trauma victims suffer through public exposure.

Since the arrest of surgeon Peter Chi on Wednesday on charges of sexual abuse, more women claiming to be his victims have come forward to tell their stories.

STOCKTON — At least 26 women now say that a Tracy plastic surgeon sexually abused them during surgery or exams, investigators say.

The number has more than tripled since Wednesday, when 46-year-old Peter Chi of Livermore was arrested on charges that he raped or otherwise sexually abused several women. Since his arrest was announced, 18 more victims have come forward alleging sexual assault by the owner of Beauty Renewed, 1770 Tracy Blvd.

He faces 11 felony counts of sexual abuse, including three counts of rape by a foreign object.

A judge at Chi’s first arraignment Thursday ordered the doctor to stay away from his medical office and see no more patients at least until next week, when the court will consider whether to suspend his medical license. Chi also surrendered his passport in court and is free after posting $100,000 bail.

Chi will likely spend time in state prison and register for life as a sex offender, police said.

He showed up to court three minutes before his scheduled hearing with his wife and bondsman, his head held high, his demeanor upbeat in front of a crush of cameras and the presence of at least two victims and their families.

Despite the order to stop seeing patients, San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Roger Ross allowed Chi to keep his medical license for the time being and issued a gag order to prevent anyone officially involved in the case from speaking to the public or the media.

Since investigators on Wednesday filed the first complaint charging the doctor with having molested eight women since late 2007, a slew of new victims have contacted police, according to Tracy police Detective Nate Cogburn.

Police said that in some cases, nurses watched Chi molest his patients, telling them it was part of the procedure, and at other times no one but the patient and doctor were in the room.

Tom Rios, the husband of one victims who attended Thursday’s hearing, said to news cameras that knowledge of his wife’s abuse has been a burden. Seeing Chi in person made him angry, he said, but relieved that the allegations against him are being seriously considered.

"It’s a weight that I had to carry around all this time," he said of his wife’s abuse. "Any man wants to protect his family."

Rios said the doctor’s license should have been confiscated this week.

Deputy Attorney General Jessica Amgwerd unsuccessfully argued for the judge to suspend Chi’s license to practice.

"I think the public demands protection," Amgwerd said. "Basically, Dr. Chi turned his patients into victims."

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A judge on Thursday barred Peter Chi, a surgeon in Tracy, to stay out of his Tracy office. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press
Ross told her that it’s enough for now that Chi stays away from his practice, even the administrative office. Investigators said he took some patient files to his Livermore home. With that in mind, if allowed access to his office, Chi could tamper with evidence, Amgwerd argued.

The doctor’s story

Chi has performed upward of 5,000 surgeries since he started practicing medicine more than a decade ago, according to his Web site. He is a board-certified ear, nose and throat doctor and plastic surgeon. He studied medicine in Canada before moving to California to practice.

Chi nearly had his license revoked in 2008, when he found a cancerous cyst on the neck of a 59-year-old man at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital but failed to tell him about it, according to the California Medical Board. It took an exam by another doctor for the patient to find out he had cancer.

The petition alleged malpractice and charged Chi with "gross negligence," because he failed to share the results with the patient.

Chi also has three malpractice settlements on his record from recent years. Only 5 percent of physicians in his field have settlements to their name.

He was exempted from appearing at his next hearing, in which the possible suspension of his medical license will be discussed, at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 13 in Department 26 of the Stockton courthouse. His next arraignment is scheduled for mid-March.

At least two of Chi’s accusers have hired attorneys who are preparing to file civil lawsuit since the story went public.

One accuser is a Tracy woman in her early 40s and one of the 18 who called police after she saw the publicized reports about Chi.

She hired the surgeon in November for a steep discount to perform liposuction on her arms and stomach, but during the operations and post-operative exams, Chi massaged her vaginal area without gloves for 15 to 20 minutes, telling her it was part of the procedure, said Stockton attorneys Stewart Tabak and Steve Brown.

The woman said the infection from her procedure worsened , which could mean Tabak and Brown could bring up charges of malpractice in addition to the accusations of criminal conduct.

Another woman, identified in the original complaint against Chi as "Yvette Doe," 46, said she thought about hiring an attorney back in September 2007, when she said Chi molested her. But she thought she was the only victim and had little confidence about going ahead with a lawsuit. When she heard about other women sharing similar stories about Chi, she said she felt vindicated.

Tabak and Brown said the number of women claiming abuse could portend many more lawsuits in the near future.

The criminal charges "adds an incredible amount of strength to the civil case," Tabak said. "Our client felt a huge level of vindication when she heard other women had the same story. Before, she was very questioning."
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