Psychiatrist Accused of Improper Sex
Medicine: For second time, officials seek action against Santa Ana doctor over an alleged affair.
November 20, 1998
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/nov/20/local/me-45477
A Santa Ana psychiatrist whose license was suspended in 1987 for having an affair with a patient has been accused by state officials of gross negligence and incompetence for having a sexual relationship with another client.
The accusation, filed by the Medical Board of California last month in Sacramento, seeks to revoke 51-year-old Dr. Jeffrey Moran's medical license.
Authorities level seven allegations, including having an improper sexual relationship with the 30-year-old patient, excessively prescribing controlled drugs and asking the patient to deny the affair to the medical board.
He also allegedly lied to police in an attempt to have the patient involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
...
During the liaison, Moran paid her college tuition, rented her a house, paid for her to have breast augmentation and provided excessive amounts of controlled substances--including narcotics and barbiturates--for the patient by writing prescriptions in the name of her friends or family members, according to the accusation.
The relationship turned to crisis in a stormy meeting in his office on Oct. 16, 1996, when Moran's wife confronted him and the patient, according to the accusation. Moran's wife already had threatened to expose his conduct to the medical board unless he ended the affair.
Moran is accused of attacking the patient in an attempt to restrain her when the patient talked about the affair in front of his wife. The board accused Moran of "grabbing her arms, bending her arms and fingers back, shaking her, and throwing her to the floor." The patient struck her head on a bookcase and received bruises on her arms.
At that point, Moran had his wife call police and
"falsely and dishonestly" attempted to have sheriff's deputies put the patient in a psychiatric facility on an involuntary committal "as a danger to herself and others," according to the accusation.
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The board suspended Moran's medical license for six months in 1986 after finding he had a 14-month affair with a patient, who he permitted to drink wine at therapy sessions and with whom he discussed his personal life. This conduct is considered "gross negligence and an extreme departure from the practice of psychiatry," according to the administrative law judge who heard the case.