A doctor in Newport Beach, California who specializes in treating members of the LGBTQ+ community has been charged with sexually assaulting nine of his patients, and authorities said they believe there may be more victims.
The Orange County district attorney’s office said Dr. William Thompson, 56, provided general practitioner services to the LGBTQ+ community and is affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.
A group of Thompson’s patients came forward to authorities after learning he carried out procedures on them that were not medically necessary, including unneeded anal exams. He also forced one patient to perform oral sex, the district attorney’s office said.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said the doctor’s patients relied on him for “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 continued.
Thompson was arrested on Sept. 20 at his Orange County medical practice and 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.
The district attorney’s office said he was released on a $100,000 bond.
If convicted on all counts, Thompson could be sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years.
