Infertility Doctor’s Schemes Misled Hundreds, Witness Says

An infertility doctor being tried on fraud charges misled a “staggering” number of patients through false pregnancies and miscarriages, a doctor who examined his records testified Tuesday.

Dr. Cecil Jacobson “knew exactly what he was doing,” said Dr. Mary Damewood, an infertility specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Judging from Jacobson’s medical records, she said, “he had a scheme outlined to do all of this.”

Jacobson faces 52 counts of fraud and perjury. He is accused of using hormone injections to trick some patients into believing that they were pregnant when they were not and of fathering up to 75 children by using his own sperm in artificial insemination while lying about the source.

Another witness, Launi Jean Robertson, who worked as a receptionist for Jacobson from 1982 to 1985, said she became convinced that Jacobson was using his own semen and that sometimes one sample would be distributed among more than one patient.

“There was only a certain amount (of stored semen) there and a number of patients coming in,” she said.

A former lab assistant, Gudrun Slaughter, who worked for Jacobson eight years, said she also was convinced that Jacobson donated his own sperm and that he sometimes divided it among patients.

Damewood said she examined records of about 1,000 of Jacobson’s patients and found that hundreds of them had been led through several supposed pregnancies and miscarriages.

Several women have testified that Jacobson convinced them that their unborn babies had died and their bodies had absorbed them.

“The number of patients that have failed pregnancies and these basically unheard-of reabsorptions was just staggering. . . . The women in the courtroom were just the tip of the iceberg,” Damewood said.

Another witness, Vicki Eckhardt, said she went through seven supposed pregnancies and miscarriages under Jacobson’s care during a three-year period.

She also testified that Jacobson guaranteed her that she would have a baby. The prosecution said Jacobson told the Federal Trade Commission in a sworn affidavit that he never guaranteed pregnancy for any patient.

Damewood said she and a radiology specialist examined a number of women’s sonograms on which Jacobson reportedly pointed out fetuses. They found no sign of pregnancy on any of the pictures.

“You can’t mistake what a fetus looks like,” she said. “It must have been clear that these women were not pregnant.”

Jacobson’s lawyer, James Tate, has repeatedly suggested that the patients may have been pregnant when Jacobson told them they were. Jacobson agreed to stop practicing medicine in 1988, and he now conducts private medical research in Provo, Utah.