Namihas Jury Remains Deadlocked on 9 of 10 Charges : Courts: Judge orders further deliberations in trial of former physician accused of using mail to defraud patients of more than $8,800 by performing unneeded surgery.

A jury deliberating in the mail fraud trial of ex-Tustin gynecologist Ivan C. Namihas told a judge Wednesday that they were hopelessly deadlocked on nine of the 10 counts against the doctor.

*

But U.S. District Judge Linda H. McLaughlin ordered jurors to continue deliberating. She suggested that the jury review testimony from the two-week trial and offered to clarify any legal points.

Namihas, 62, is charged with using the mail to defraud six patients and their insurance companies of more than $8,800 by performing unnecessary, expensive and painful laser surgery.

He has denied all of the charges.

Wednesday was the second time jurors have indicated they were deadlocked. On Monday, after a day of deliberating, jurors said they had reached a decision on one count but could not agree on the others.

Shortly after the judge’s order Wednesday, jurors asked that the testimony of two witnesses be reread.

Jurors asked for the testimony of a former Namihas patient who said the doctor told her she had cervical cancer and viral warts. She testified that Namihas used laser surgery to treat both conditions, and that he burned her so badly with a laser that she bled and was bedridden for six weeks.

The jury also asked to review testimony from Dr. Roger Schlessinger, who treated the woman after Namihas did. Schlessinger said the woman did not have cervical cancer, though she did have a serious precancerous condition. He testified that laser surgery was not appropriate treatment for cancer.

Namihas denied on the witness stand that he purposefully misdiagnosed or gave inappropriate treatment to patients. He said he told patients they had precancerous conditions, not cancer, and that the patients must have misunderstood him.

Two doctors who testified on his behalf said that while laser surgery is not appropriate treatment for cancer, it was recommended as treatment for precancerous conditions in the late 1980s, when Namihas was treating the patients.

Namihas, who now lives in Las Vegas, was the subject of more than 160 sexual abuse complaints by former patients in 1992. The allegations led to the largest medical abuse investigation in California history and to the revocation of his medical license.

Prosecutors, however, did not press sexual assault charges, saying that the statute of limitations had expired in most instances and that they lacked corroborating evidence.