The district attorney for Clackamas County has requested that Oregon’s attorney general take over the investigation into a former West Linn physician who was accused of sexual assault by hundreds of former patients.
The Oregon Department of Justice stated that it has already been looking into the issue since the fall of 2022 and acknowledged receiving the request from District Attorney John D. Wentworth.
In a letter to the state, Wentworth—who has faced criticism from patients and their attorneys for not bringing all of the allegations before a grand jury—stated that his office faced substantial factual and legal challenges in pursuing a prosecution and called for a second investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice.
In the letter published on Wednesday, Wentworth stated, “I think a thorough review by your office, along with the trust you have built with the plaintiffs’ attorneys and their clients, may provide the opportunity needed to move forward.”
According to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office, a grand jury in September 2022 that heard testimony from 41 witnesses concluded that there was not enough evidence to support Dr. David B. Farley’s claimed sexual abuse and misconduct.
In a damning letter to Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum that same month, lawyers for the women suing Farley and the clinic where he worked claimed that Tony Christensen, the lead West Linn police detective, had ruined the investigation because of his incapacity and his combative and contemptuous demeanor.
Christensen was deemed unqualified to conduct such investigations and lacked rudimentary knowledge of the medical and legal concerns involved by an outside consultant that West Linn had recruited earlier this year.
In a legal complaint that is still proceeding, Farley is accused of sexually abusing numerous women and girls for decades while posing as a doctor at the West Linn Family Health Center, which he founded in 1989.
After the grand jury’s verdict in the fall of 2022, the state Department of Justice launched an investigation into the case, according to agency spokeswoman Roy Kaufmann.
According to him, DOJ would keep looking into the issue, which has been ongoing for a while. This request from the DA means that DOJ will now also handle any grounds for prosecution if we find one. This is an extremely complicated matter, as we have said before. It concerns several unsettling claims of sexual abuse made by a person who served as the girls’ or women’s doctor.
According to court documents, the number of former patients who have accused Farley of sexually assaulting them during examinations has increased from a small number of plaintiffs to over 200. They claim that he severed his victims’ hymens, took pictures of their breasts and genitalia with his own cellphone, and insisted on doing needless, frequent ungloved pelvic and breast checks.
According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Farley won the trust of his former patients by treating them like family. They characterized him as a skilled manipulator who cultivated his patients to believe his actions were required for medical reasons. According to the lawsuit, patients as young as five were allegedly abused.
According to court testimony, Farley, who relocated to Idaho, has not addressed the allegations and plans to use his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination in the ongoing civil action.
The district attorney’s letter was deemed long overdue by one of the accused victims, who requested anonymity.
One of the attorneys for the patients suing Farley and the medical facility, Courtney M. Thom, chastised Wentworth for delaying sending the request to the state for so long.She stated that the motivation behind it is questionable.
When questioned about the date of his letter, Wentworth declined to speak further.
Following the grand jury’s failure to indict Farley, Thom and a group of claimed victims met with state attorneys in 2022 and urged the attorney general’s office to take over the investigation. Since then, she claimed, she has maintained communication with the attorney general’s office.
On Wednesday, Thom stated, “We had serious concerns about the integrity of the entire process, the evidence that was presented, and the way the case was presented to the grand jury.”
Thom, a former prosecutor in Orange County, California, said Wentworth ought to have asked the state Justice Department for help early on in the probe rather than waiting two years.
Thom expressed her expectation that the attorney general’s office will take action, something that the West Linn police department and the Clackamas County DA’s office did not.
The civil claim is scheduled to go to trial in January 2026. Currently, depositions and discovery involve lawyers.
— Maxine Bernstein writes about criminal justice and federal courts. You may contact her at [email protected], 503-221-8212, or follow her on LinkedIn or X@maxoregonian.
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