INNOCENCE BETRAYED The Rape and Abuse of Children

The most contemptible of crimes committed by psychiatrists and psychologists involve the sexual abuse of children who are frequently entrusted to their care by courts, child protective and family services, and other government agencies. As reported in 2001, a national U.S. study of therapist�client sex reported that one out of 20 clients who had been sexually abused by their therapist was a minor. The female victims� ages ranged from three to 17, and from seven to 16 for the males. The average age was seven for girls and 12 for boys.

On July 24, 2002, Danish psychologist, Bjarne Skovsager (54), was sentenced to six years in prison for numerous and severe sexual abuses�including sodomy and indecent exposure�against three boys between the ages of seven and 11. Skovsager was ordered to pay compensation to each boy. In sentencing, the judge stated, �You have had a relationship of trust with the family which you systematically and severely exploited.�

In 1997, Oakland Circuit Court Judge Alice Gilbert denied psychologist Julian Gordon�s bail request, ordering him to remain in jail pending an appeal of his conviction for molesting and sodomizing a teenage boy. Gordon, appointed by a county probate court to work with troubled teens, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Judge Gilbert stated, �There is no civilization if we don�t protect our children.�

Psychiatrist Paul Bridges was convicted in August 2000 of assaulting two boys, aged 15 and 16, both vulnerable runaways. In 1996, the 15-year-old had visited Bridges at his home, where Bridges photographed the boy naked and indecently assaulted him. Three years later, a 16-year-old boy responded to an advertisement Bridges had placed seeking �male models� and was also sexually assaulted. Police discovered Bridges was running a nationwide pedophile ring.

The same year, Robert Bruce Craft, a Georgia psychiatrist working for the State Department of Family and Children�s Services treating abused and emotionally disturbed children, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for felony sexual exploitation of a minor and child molestation. The Assistant District Attorney called Craft�s crimes �deliberate acts that stole children�s innocence.� �Twenty years isn�t enough,� she told the judge. �If he served every day it would not be enough. If he lives to be 107, like my grandmother, then I hope it�s spent in [jail].�

Antonio DeGuzman, a Massachusetts adolescent psychiatrist, was sentenced to 3�4 years in prison and 15 years probation for fondling three young male patients. The prosecuting attorney stated, �Sexual assault against young people is bad enough, but when that person is a physician in a white coat � it is not very hard to understand that he is the devil in disguise.�

Donald Persson, a Utah psychologist, described himself as �a moral person� when he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the rape of a 12-year-old girl. Evidence seized in the criminal case indicated that he may have sexually abused as many as 16 young girls�several under the age of five� since 1972.

In 1992, Alan J. Horowitz, a New York psychiatrist, was sentenced to 10 to 20 years for sodomizing three boys aged seven to nine, and for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. Horowitz defended himself saying that he was a �normal
pedophile.� Police investigations found a trail of sexual abuse of patients dating back to the late 1960s, when Horowitz worked for a community organization that helped impoverished, inner-city children.

In New Zealand, a commune of psychotherapists started by psychiatrist Bill Rowntree and psychiatric nurse Bert Potter, was investigated for the sexual abuse of children as part of their �therapy� plan. Eight psychotherapists and commune members were convicted in the early 1990s. Despite spending more than seven years in prison on child sex charges, including sexual assault of his own children, Potter was reported to have still asserted that �sexual activity initiated by the child and kept at their level is not harmful.� This included one three-year-old girl performing oral sex on men, and a girl of 11 being given the drug Ecstasy. Another adolescent was assigned the �task� of having sex with Potter after school because he told her she had an emotional block.

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