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.
In a letter, District Attorney John D. 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 the Oregon Department of Justice to conduct a second investigation.
I think the chance to proceed may be provided by a thorough assessment by your office and the trust you have built with the plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients. Wentworth said in his letter.
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.
At the West Linn Family Health Center, which he founded in 1989, Farley allegedly sexually assaulted numerous women and girls for decades while posing as a trusted doctor, according to a complaint that is still pending.
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.
“I find it gravely concerning that Mr. Wentworth has waited years to put out this letter,” said Courtney M. Thom, one of the attorneys representing the more than 200 alleged victims who have filed a civil claim against Farley and the West Linn Family Medical Center, on Wednesday. Its motivation is questionable.
When questioned about the date of his letter, Wentworth declined to speak further.
After a Clackamas County grand jury declined to indict Farley, Thom and a group of alleged victims met with attorneys in the attorney general’s office in 2022, pleading with the office to take over the investigation.
Since we sent the letter to the attorney general’s office, we have maintained communication with them, Thom stated. We had serious doubts about the integrity of the entire process, the evidence that was submitted, and the way the case was presented before the grand jury.
Thom, a former prosecutor in Orange County, California, noted that Wentworth ought to have enlisted the aid of the state Justice Department at the outset of the investigation rather than waiting for around two years after the grand jury decision.
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 ongoing civil suit will go to trial in January 2026. Currently, depositions and discovery involve lawyers.
According to agency spokeswoman Roy Kauffman, the state Department of Justice has been investigating the case.
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.
— 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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