Called ‘Sexually Out of Control’ : Chiropractor’s Rape Trial Goes to Jury

A chiropractor accused of raping one patient and molesting three others in his Canoga Park office was “sexually out of control,” a prosecutor argued Friday as the chiropractor’s trial concluded in Van Nuys Superior Court.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Mader told the jury in her closing argument that the four women had recounted a “strikingly similar series of events that’s almost eerie.”

“The chance that four separate women would come up with this scenario . . . stretches one’s imagination to the breaking point,” she said.

The defendant, Ronald Burton Schain, 52, who in 1984 and 1986 received the “Doctor of the Year” award from the San Fernando Valley Chiropractic Society, steadfastly denied the women’s allegations when he testified during the four-week trial.

Schain said the patient who claims he raped her on an examination table enticed him into a sexual act after he performed a massage to relieve her back pain. He said he started to go through with the act, then thought better of it and climbed off the table.

He asserted that she fabricated the rape charge in retaliation for his having fired a close friend of hers who worked as a chiropractor in his office. He also claimed that she hoped to collect money from him through a lawsuit.

Schain said he never acted lewdly with the other three women, but may have touched them near their breasts or groin areas as part of a legitimate massage technique to drain the lymph glands.

“Chiropractic is different from other kinds of medicine,” Schain’s attorney told the jury in his closing argument. “Chiropractic lays hands on for the purpose of getting people well.”

Man of ‘Tremendous Girth’

The attorney, Michael Adelson, said that Schain, who weighed more than 250 pounds at the time of the reports, was of a “tremendous girth” and that his body necessarily rubbed against his patients when he massaged them on a vertical table.

Adelson said two of the women came forward after reading a newspaper article about Schain’s arrest. He said they may have been influenced by that account, or by conversations with police detectives.

Schain is accused of two counts of rape and one count of sexual battery against one patient and one count each of sexual battery against the other three. The alleged assaults occurred between Oct. 31, 1985, and Jan. 31, 1986.

The jury will begin deliberations Monday.

In an agreement with state licensing officials, Schain continues to practice but is permitted to see only male patients, Adelson said. The regulatory board is awaiting the outcome of the trial before conducting hearings on a possible license suspension, Adelson said.