Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 12, 1992 TAG: 9202120304
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium
PATIENT TESTIFIES DOCTOR LIED ABOUT PREGNANCY
A patient of an infertility doctor charged with fraud testified Tuesday that he pointed out "Junior" in a sonogram the day after another doctor determined she was not pregnant.The woman testified against Dr. Cecil Jacobson, who is accused of deceiving some patients into believing they were pregnant when they were not and of using his own sperm to artificially inseminate as many as 75 others while misleading them about the source.
He is on trial in U.S. District Court facing 52 counts of fraud and perjury.
Christine Maimone, on the second day of Jacobson's trial, testified that she was treated by him for five months in 1987. She said that without examining her "he said all I needed was some [hormone] shots to get me pregnant."
The doctor did not warn her that the hormone shots could create a false positive result of her pregnancy test, Maimone said under questioning from prosecutor Randy Bellows.
Maimone, who had suffered a miscarriage the previous year, said that after a month of hormone treatments, Jacobson performed a pregnancy test and said the result was positive.
Dr. John D. Doppelheuer, an obstetrician, testified earlier Tuesday that he examined Maimone two months later and became concerned when he could not find a fetal heartbeat. He said he recommended an independent sonogram, which showed an "empty uterine cavity" and no evidence of pregnancy.
Defense attorney James Tate sought to attack Doppelheuer's credentials by showing that Doppelheuer had not published any articles on medical research, and that his three medical partners were expected to testify on Jacobson's behalf.
Tate sought to show that Jacobson was correct in contending that a dead fetus could be reabsorbed into a woman's body, but Doppelheuer said he had never seen any case where a woman miscarried without expelling the tissue.
Doppelheuer testified that he had examined another of Jacobson's patients, Deborah S. Gregory, at about the same time he saw Maimone. He also sent Gregory for tests that determined she was not pregnant, although Jacobson had led her to believe she was, Doppelheuer said.
Jacobson agreed to stop practicing medicine and to set up a $250,000 fund to compensate his patients in 1989 after the Virginia State Medical Board revoked his license.