Orange County doctor to LGBTQ+ community charged with sexually assaulting 9 patients
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An Orange County doctor who specializes in treating members of the LGBTQ+ community has been charged with sexually assaulting nine male patients, according to prosecutors.
Local authorities are asking for the public's help in providing any additional information on other potential victims.
Dr. William Thompson lV, 56, of Huntington Beach is an infectious-disease doctor who has provided "general practitioner services to the LGBTQ community," according to Thompson's website.
Thompson is accused of assaulting nine male patients between 2016 and 2020, under the guise that the assaults were part of necessary medical exams, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.
He is charged with eight felony counts of sexual penetration by means of fraudulent representation of professional purpose, three felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and two felony counts of forcible oral copulation, according to a news release from the district attorney's office.
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The Times reached out to Thompson for a comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Six of Thompson's patients disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted by Thompson after learning that procedures he had performed on them were not medically necessary, according to the news release.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said many of the doctor's patients depended on him to provide "life-saving care and he exploited those vulnerabilities for his own sexual gratification."
"Unfortunately, because of his specialized area of practice, Dr. Thompson put the very patients he was supposed to treat with professionalism and dignity, in a situation where they may have felt they had no other choice but to be subjected to sexual abuse in order to receive the treatment they needed to continue to live," Spitzer said.
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Thompson was arrested Sept. 20 at his Newport Beach medical practice after a joint investigation by the California Department of Consumer Affairs and the Newport Beach Police Department. He is currently out on $100,000 bond.
He could be sentenced to life plus 25 years if convicted on all counts.
He is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 2 at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
The district attorney's office asks that anyone with additional information call the Newport Beach Police Department at (949) 644-3682. Anonymous tips can be made to (800) 550-6273.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
