Police Seek More Victims in ‘Cure’ Fraud : Man Charged With Getting Women to Have Sex as Treatment

A man who allegedly has persuaded more than seven women over the last three years to pay him for sex to “cure” non-existent diseases has been charged with obtaining sex by fraud in connection with the case of a 23-year-old Orange County woman, officials said Monday.

Anaheim police said Monday they hoped that more publicity about the arrest of Daniel Kayton Boro would prompt other possible victims to come forward.

Boro, 44, who was given the nickname “Dr. Feelgood” by police and the news media, was arrested last Tuesday for allegedly persuading a 23-year-old Orange County woman to pay him $750 for sex to “cure” what she believed to be a deadly blood disease, Anaheim Police Lt. Peter De Paola said.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregg L. Prickett said charges of obtaining sexual intercourse by false pretense and providing false information to police were filed against Boro last Thursday in North Orange County Municipal Court. He said Boro’s arraignment on the charges was continued until Friday at the request of Boro’s public defender.

Other Victims

Boro, who was being held in the Orange County Jail, allegedly had sex with the woman on March 20, De Paola said.

“We’re hoping that if there are other victims they’ll come forward to the Police Department at this time,” De Paola said.

The rape-by-fraud charge is the first of its kind brought against Boro, whose unusual method of operation prompted the writing of a new law in 1986, officials said. He had previously been investigated for similar crimes, but an appeals court ruled that his alleged actions did not fall under the definition of rape, with which he had been charged.

The Orange County case is the most recent involving Boro, who allegedly posed as a doctor to trick women into paying him for sex. Police said that in both Orange County and the San Francisco Bay Area, Boro randomly called women, claiming to have results from blood tests and pap smears that showed the women to have a terrible disease.

The women had two options: either to undergo a costly and dangerous operation or have sex with a man injected with a “serum” that would cure the women’s problems, San Francisco Police Inspector Bob Huegle said.

Doctor Was Donor

The purported doctor was the “donor” in all of the cases, Huegle said.

Boro, of San Mateo, was a “good con man” and was able to take information women would give during the course of a conversation and turn it around to make them believe they were ill, Huegle said.

“One woman took all of the money out of the bank she had,” Huegle said. “One woman even bought him a bottle of wine.”

Huegle said that in the five reported cases in San Francisco in 1984, women paid $900, $1,100 and $1,500 for sex; two of the women declined to pay.

Three of the women were in their 20s, one was in her 50s and the fifth was in her 60s, Huegle said. All five women were Asian. De Paola said he did not know if the Orange County woman is Asian.

Most Refused

Only a small percentage of the women contacted actually spoke to the suspect, Huegle said, explaining that most women refused to discuss these personal tests with an unknown doctor. Bay Area police had reports of 30 cases in which women received phone calls but hung up on the suspect.

Those who did speak to him, Huegle said, “really thought they were going to die.”

Huegle said Boro was arrested in 1984 in South San Francisco for rape and fraud. He was subsequently charged with five other San Francisco-area sexual assaults but was released when his conviction in the South San Francisco rape case was thrown out on appeal, Huegle said. The San Francisco district attorney did not pursue the other five counts because of the case law and because some of the victims refused to testify, according to Huegle.

The appellate court’s ruling in Boro’s case was the basis for a law passed in 1986 making it a felony to use false information to obtain sex.

Boro is being held on $50,000 bail for the Orange County offense and a no-bail governor’s warrant for incidents in Hawaii, authorities said. When arrested, Boro was free on bail for grand theft and terrorist threats in Hawaii and grand theft charges in San Francisco that were unrelated to the sex incidents.

Boro is also charged with committing crimes while free on bail and is facing other felony charges, Prickett said. If convicted in the Orange County case, he said, Boro could be sentenced to two additional years.