by REERA YOO | @reeraboo
editor@charactermedia.com
A Pennsylvania doctor has been accused of getting 12 female patients addicted to prescription drugs and using their addictions as leverage to commit sexual assaults, reports the New York Daily News.
Dr. Jay J. Cho, 71, was arrested on Tuesday with multiple charges, including rape, aggravated indecent assault, criminal use of a communication facility and drug delivery by a practitioner, said the Hampden Township police.
Cho allegedly peddled powerful narcotics, such as Oxycodone, to the women for as long as five years in his offices in Cumberland and Franklin counties. After his patients became addicted to the narcotics, he baited them for sexual favors with refilled prescriptions, police said.
The majority of victims were afraid to reject the doctor’s sexual advances as they did not want to be cut off from the medications, according to the Upper Allen Township police report. The report further stated that “the manner in which Cho interacted with these patients was clearly outside the normal doctor and patient relationship,” as he would assault his patients when he sensed that they were “under extreme emotional stress from their personal lives.”
“Instead of a doctor helping or treating people with addictions, Dr. Cho was creating addicts and/or taking advantage of people with addictions for his own personal and perverted desires,” said Upper Allen Police Chief James Adams.
Agreeing with this sentiment, Hampden Township Police Chief Steven R. Junkin called Cho a predator who abused his power as a practitioner.
“There is no room in society for these predators and today, with endless hours, exhausting interviews, old fashioned hard work and interagency cooperation, we’ve hopefully removed this predator’s ability to ruin more lives,” Junkin said.
The Cumberland County Drug Task Force had kept tabs on Cho for several years after receiving information that he was a “candy doctor,” a practitioner who prescribes controlled drugs with little or no medical reason. In 2010, a patient filed a police report alleging sexual assault, but she never followed through with the complaint. Police re-launched the investigation when another female patient accused Cho of sexual assault in May 2014.
Once the victims’ medical reports were reviewed by a pain management expert, it quickly became clear that Cho had been severely overprescribing painkillers to each of his patients. His prescriptions far exceeded the amount of opiates found acceptable by national standards of care, according to the expert’s report.
Cho’s bail is set at $375,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2015 at 9:30 a.m. at Magisterial District Judge Kathryn Silcox’s office.
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Featured image courtesy of Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office
