JEREMY DUDA - Daily Herald | Posted: Friday, August 31, 2007 11:00 pm
A Springville fertility doctor accused of inappropriately touching patients accepted a plea deal on reduced charges that will keep his name off the sex offender registry and may allow him to keep his medical license.
Larry Andrew entered his plea in 4th District Court in Provo on Friday. Instead of the 19 counts of forcible sexual abuse with which he was previously charged, he pleaded no contest to eight counts of sexual battery, class A misdemeanors. Forcible sexual abuse is a second-degree felony.
Each sexual battery charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Judge Samuel McVey set Andrew's sentencing hearing for Nov. 6.
To convict Andrew of forcible sexual abuse, the prosecution would have had to prove that he touched patients' genitals for the purpose of sexual gratification. For sexual battery, prosecutors needed only to show that he touched them in a way that he knew or should have known was likely to cause affront or alarm.
"There was no sexual gratification. It was an inappropriate touch that was likely to cause alarm," said Kenneth Brown, Andrew's attorney. "That's a much different crime than forcible sexual abuse."
The Utah County Attorney's Office filed sex abuse charges against Andrew in March 2006 after several patients accused him of massaging their genitals during fertility treatments, which he said was done to relieve pain. He was also accused of having an employee perform prostate exams on him. According to a news release from the Springville Police Department in March 2006, the alleged incidents occurred between 2002 and 2005.
Brown said that the plea deal avoids the risk of being convicted on charges that would cost Andrew his medical license. Conversely, prosecutor Dave Sturgill said he accepted the deal because there was a high risk that a jury would acquit on the felony charges.
"It's a compromise," he said. "Do I think he committed forcible sex abusesfi Absolutely. ... The problem is it doesn't matter what I believe. It matters what I can prove."
Several of the victims in the case attended the hearing. They said they understood why Sturgill agreed to the plea deal, though they were disappointed that Andrew would not be convicted on felony sex abuse charges and have no doubt that Andrew received sexual gratification.
"There are no words that are harsh enough and mean enough other than we hope he burns in hell," one victim said.
"I don't think it's right. He committed felonies," said another victim. "I think it's really, really unfortunate."
Brown said the long-running case has damaged Andrew's practice, and the doctor is concerned about the effect that Friday's plea deal will have. Andrew's license was revoked in December 2005, though it was later reinstated.
McVey said the sentences could run concurrently for each of the eight sexual battery counts -- one count for each woman he is accused of abusing. But Sturgill said he made no sentencing recommendations as part of the deal and plans to go for the maximum possible jail time. If the sentences run concurrently, Andrew could serve less than one year in jail. Before he is sentenced, Andrew will undergo a psychosexual examination, which will evaluate his sexual history, interest and risk level, among other things.
"Everything he did was under a false pretense," Sturgill said. "My heart breaks for these women because I would have loved to have got more than we did."
The victims said they plan to speak at Andrew's sentencing hearing and are hoping for jail time.
"He needs to be held accountable," a victim said.
The victims also expressed hope that the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing will strip Andrew of his license to practice medicine, and said they worried about his other patients. He is a man in a position of trust, said one victim, and "he betrayed that trust."
The two victims who were Andrew's patients said they did not realize at the time of the abuse that what Andrew did was inappropriate. Their husbands were even in the room at the time. It wasn't until they went to different doctors, they said, that they realized what they experienced was not a normal fertility procedure.
They worry that there may be other victims who don't realize that they've been abused. They were also concerned that women still seek fertility treatment from Andrew.
"It's only a very strong indicator that they don't know," said one victim.
That victim said nobody is 100 percent bad, and pointed out that she was able to get pregnant through Andrew's fertility treatment. Nonetheless, she was not in a forgiving mood.
"I feel like he tortured me and he used me," she said.
Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.