Ex-Aide of Dr. Namihas Sues for Sexual Abuse : Courts: Former office manager claims she was continually harassed by the Tustin gynecologist.

A former employee of Tustin gynecologist Ivan C. Namihas filed a lawsuit against the beleaguered doctor Thursday alleging that he sexually abused and harassed her continually during her one-year employment.

The civil lawsuit, filed by 26-year-old Delia Hernandez of Buena Park, came a day after the county district attorney’s office announced that it will not file criminal charges against Namihas because most of the allegations that he sexually abused his patients date beyond the one-year statute of limitations.

Earlier this week, Namihas, 59, failed to rebut the California Medical Board’s charges that he sexually abused about 50 of his patients, as far back as 1982. Blaming the publicity his case has generated, Namihas did not attend a court hearing in Los Angeles to dispute those accusations. His inaction allowed the state board to revoke his medical license permanently within the next few weeks.

Hernandez’s lawyer Gloria Allred decried the district attorney’s decision not to file charges, saying that in her client’s case, the alleged misconduct happened within the past year.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Charles Sturla, who heads the sexual assault unit, replied that the decision not to pursue Hernandez’s case was was based upon “the fact that we felt that (those charges) lack legally sufficient evidence to prove criminal conduct by the legal standard which is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ”

Namihas and his attorney could not be reached Thursday for comments.

Hernandez claims in her lawsuit that from March, 1991, to February, 1992, when she worked for him as office manager and was also his patient, Namihas allegedly subjected her to frequent sexually explicit remarks as well as fondled and physically assaulted her. Once, he unsnapped her bra, and another time, he molested her during a physical examination, Hernandez claims.

The alleged abuse took place as frequently as three days a week, Hernandez said in a telephone interview from Allred’s office. On one of the alleged occasions, she slapped his hand away, she added, but often, she would just walk away.

“What he did to me was degrading, humiliating and painful,” Hernandez said. She put up with the alleged abuse “because I needed the job.”

Hernandez quit her job this past February and claimed in her lawsuit that she was “forced to resign” because Namihas’ conduct had become intolerable.

Her lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court claims employment discrimination, sexual battery, wrongful termination and emotional distress and seeks unspecified damages.