Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 25, 1992 TAG: 9202250219
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES HITE and DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DOCTOR SUSPECTED OF MOLESTATION FACED CHARGES IN CALIF.
A Roanoke doctor charged with child molestation agreed to stop practicing child psychiatry for three years after he faced similar charges in California.Dr. William G. Gray also agreed to undergo psychiatric counseling and to surrender his foster home license in a 1978 "non-statutory diversion agreement" with the District Attorney's Office of San Diego County.
The agreement was reached after an extensive police investigation of allegations that Gray sexually molested a 16-year-old foster son on numerous occasions over three years.
San Diego police recommended that Gray be charged with a felony. However, the District Attorney's office decided the case would be difficult to prosecute. Prosecutors were warned that bringing the case to trial "could lead to devastating psychological damage" to the boy. And they were concerned the case would turn on the boy's word against that of "a well-respected doctor."
The events leading to Gray's out-of-court settlement are detailed in a prosecutor's letter on file with the Medical Board of California.
In the Aug. 28, 1978, letter to the medical board's executive secretary, Deputy District Attorney Clifford Dobrin said prosecutors decided against charging Gray even though the boy was "a credible witness and appeared truthful."
Dobrin said the prosecution's investigation lasted several months and included interviews with a "great number" of people and a background study of Gray and the boy. In addition, the boy was given a lie-detector test, a battery of psychological tests and extensive evaluation by two forensic psychiatrists, Dobrin's letter said.
In the agreement with prosecutors, Gray admitted no wrongdoing. The boy Gray was accused of molesting was told of the settlement and agreed that it was an acceptable way to handle the case, according to the letter.
Gray, 50, has declined to comment about the charges he faces in Roanoke County. He is scheduled to appear today in Roanoke County Juvenile and Domestic Relations County.
"He is not guilty," said Richard Lawrence, Gray's attorney.
Gray was charged last week with three misdemeanor counts of sexual battery on a teen-age boy at a home in southern Roanoke County. The incident is alleged to have taken place in September.
Gray also is under investigation by the Franklin County Sheriff's Department for alleged sex acts at a Smith Mountain Lake home. In addition, the Virginia Department of Health Professions, the state agency that regulates doctors, has Gray under investigation.
In 1989, Gray testified as an expert witness in federal court in Roanoke when Tony Leyva and two other traveling evangelical ministers were sentenced for recruiting young boys into homosexual prostitution. He testified that counseling doesn't work with child molesters. He said he had treated about 100 pedophiles without success.
In Gray's California case, after his settlement with the San Diego District Attorney's office, he came under investigation by the state Medical Board.
Three boys who were to testify against Gray did not show up for a board hearing, according to Janie Corday, public information officer for the board.
Charges that Gray engaged in homosexual acts with a former patient who became a foster child were dismissed by the board in April 1980.
"It's very difficult to establish cases without witnesses," Cordray said.
In a written decision on the charges, the board did confirm two allegations. One was that Gray offered his teen-age foster child "$10 to go to bed with him." The reason for the offer, the decision added, was that Gray had "heard rumors of paid homosexual activity" on the part of the boy. Gray "used this technique as a method of confrontation to determine if the rumors were true," the decision said.
The board also said Gray played a game called "hot and cold" with a 9-year-old male foster child. During the game the child "hid a rock and Dr. Gray was to find it." Gray felt the rock and "pulled it out from underneath [the child's] pants and underpants," the decision said.
"Those are facts," Corday said. "The panel decided that those alone were not sufficient to remove his license."
Gray had a large private practice as a child psychiatrist in San Diego and had "an excellent reputation as to his competency and dedication to his profession," according to a transcript of the medical panel's decision.
Gray and his wife provided a home for approximately nine foster children who were difficult to place and adopted one of the foster children, the decision said.
Gray, who attended Wake Forest University, the Medical College of Virginia and Duke University, was licensed to practice medicine in Virginia in 1966. He was issued a California license in 1968.
During an interview with the Roanoke Times & World-News in summer 1985, Gray said he, along with three other investors, had put together a company called Wilderness Expeditions, which offered tours of Peru's Amazon wilderness. Part of the profits from the tours, Gray has said, are used to support an orphanage near the town of Iquitos, a jumping-off point for the Peruvian jungle.
Gray's office on Washington Avenue in Roanoke's Old Southwest neighborhood is filled with caged exotic birds, tropical plants and antiques. He also owns a store on Roanoke's Public Market called Jaguar International, which he stocked with clothing and other items from South America.
Gray, a skin diver and collector of antiques from Asia, is the son of Baptist missionaries who served in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. For three years during World War II, the Japanese held Gray and his parents as prisoners of war in the Philippines.
Staff writers Ron Brown and Victoria Ratcliff contributed to this story.