LOS ANGELES, Calif.–A doctor who sexually assaulted eight female patients and an undercover detective while working at three medical facilities in Los Angeles and Glendale was sentenced today to 12 1/2 years in prison.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor rejected a defense motion for a new trial for Dr. Kevin Antario Brown, the son of former Bermuda Premier Ewart Brown.
The 40-year-old Brown was convicted Aug. 15 of nine counts of sexual exploitation by a physician, eight counts of sexual battery by fraud and one count each of forcible penetration by a foreign object, penetration by a foreign object by fraud, lewd act on a child and attempted sexual battery by fraud. The charges involved crimes between 2003 and 2008.
Jurors deadlocked on eight other charges against Brown, and Pastor dismissed those counts today.
Brown’s attorney, Edi M.O. Faal, told reporters after the verdict was reached that the defense was “extremely disappointed” with the jury’s findings.
Faal said the defense believed that each of the women “had a credibility issue,” but added that “the sheer numbers of alleged victims was a major hurdle to overcome.”
“… We just couldn’t overcome that,” the lawyer said.
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Ann Marie Wise told jurors the victims all described similar scenarios, including Brown flirting with patients, asking them out, making unnecessary comments and performing unnecessary breast and vaginal examinations.
Each one of them told someone what had happened before eventually going to police, including one who told police she was raped after Brown visited her at her apartment, Wise said.
Knowing that they had to come forward “once they knew they weren’t alone,” the majority of the victims contacted authorities after Brown was charged with sexually assaulting one female patient and an undercover officer who had been sent into his office, Wise said.
Brown’s attorney countered that there were inconsistencies in the women’s stories, noting that no one ever heard the patients screaming or telling the doctor to stop.
The defense lawyer accused an undercover police detective of lying that the doctor had held her breasts during an examination involving a problem with her ankle. He noted that it was “nowhere on (an audio) tape.”
Shortly after Brown was charged in July 2008, a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner barred him from seeing female patients without a chaperone approved by the Medical Board of California.
By Terri Vermeulen Keith | City News Service
