LOS ANGELES — A former University of California, Los Angeles obstetrician-gynecologist is facing as many as 21 years in prison after a jury convicted him Thursday of sexually abusing female patients during his roughly 35-year tenure with the institution.
According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, James Heaps was found guilty on three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person, The New York Times reported.
UCLA has already paid about $700 million to settle claims of sexual misconduct against Heaps, who was affiliated with the university in various roles from 1983 to 2018, the newspaper reported.
“Instead of upholding the Hippocratic oath, (Heaps) used his position as a doctor, as a specialist, to sexually assault ... incredibly vulnerable women,” Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers said during the trial, which began Aug. 9, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Heaps, 65, had originally faced 21 felony charges for assaults that occurred between 2009 and 2018, but the counts for which he was convicted occurred between 2013 and 2015, the “portion of his tenure that falls within the statute of limitations for which criminal charges could be brought,” the newspaper reported.
Heaps was found not guilty on seven other counts, including one count of sexual exploitation. Meanwhile, Judge Michael Carter declared a mistrial on nine other sex-related counts, citing a jury that was “hopelessly deadlocked” on them, the LA Times reported.
Those charges included three counts of sexual battery by fraud, four counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person and two counts of sexual exploitation of a patient, according to the distirct attorney’s office.
John Manly, who represented more than 200 women in civil lawsuits against Heaps and the university, said in a prepared statement, obtained by The New York Times, that the doctor’s guilt “has been firmly established.”
“The horrible abuse he perpetrated on cancer patients and others who trusted him as their doctor has been exposed and justice was done,” Manly stated, adding, “This was made possible because our clients and other brave women had the courage to relive their painful abuse in interviews with law enforcement and as witnesses in court.”
Leonard Levine, Heaps’s attorney, has not commented publicly on the verdict.
Heaps’s sentencing is slated for Nov. 17.
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