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	Why Wasn't He Stopped? By Hilary Waldman and Daniel P. Jones Hartford Courant February 24, 2008 http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-reardon0224.artfeb24,0,6137513.story During the same stretch of time that Dr. George Reardon was allegedly fondling youngsters in his office at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, a psychologist across town at the Institute of Living reached this conclusion: "Dr. Reardon is not a pedophile." Sparked by complaints, the state Department of Public Health — which has the authority to lodge formal charges against doctors and initiate disciplinary hearings — had asked the prestigious institute to examine Reardon to determine whether he was a child molester. A psychiatrist and a psychologist conducted three separate evaluations of Reardon between 1988 and 1993, with each examination spanning several weeks. During the examinations, Reardon "categorically and absolutely denied" allegations that he abused young boys and girls during his work as an endocrinologist specializing in childhood growth and development at St. Francis, according to copies of written psychological reports submitted to the health department and obtained by The Courant. The mental health experts also interviewed some of Reardon's alleged victims — one of whom provided a detailed description of Reardon's genitalia. But while the institute's experts conceded it was difficult to determine who was telling the truth — the doctor or his accusers — they said they could not diagnose Reardon as a pedophile. In both 1988 and 1991 the experts concluded that Reardon was able to continue practicing medicine with "skill and safety." Now, 20 years later, it's clear just how wrong the experts were. Reardon died in 1998, but last November, a cache of thousands of pornographic photos and videos was found hidden in the basement of Reardon's former West Hartford home, prompting dozens of men and women to come forward and tell horror stories. Under the guise of research, they say, Reardon would have them undress, fondle them to the point of sexual arousal and photograph them in suggestive poses — at times with other children. Since that discovery, more than 60 adults have filed lawsuits, accusing St. Francis of negligence for not preventing the alleged abuse — including six who say they were abused after the first complaints were filed with the state in 1987. "One of the tragedies is the decision of officials at the health department not to proceed [with disciplinary action in 1987]," said Susan Smith, an Avon lawyer who represents about half of Reardon's alleged victims. "They allowed the doctors at the [Institute of Living] to be the judges in the case." With the psychiatric reports in hand, public health officials declined to pursue disciplinary action against Reardon, although department officials refuse to say how much the reports influenced their decision. Six years passed from the time the first complaint was filed before the institute reversed its opinion in 1993 and the department moved to revoke Reardon's license. One alleged victim who is suing the hospital and says he was abused by Reardon numerous times from 1987 to 1993 called the inaction by the hospital and state regulators "an outrage." "It's like adding salt in the wounds — another six years," said the man, who now lives in West Hartford and like other accusers is identified only as John or Jane Roe or John or Jane Doe in court documents. "Who knows how many other kids could have been saved?" In a written statement, the institute's psychiatrist in chief, Dr. Harold I. Schwartz, said last week that Reardon had managed to "deceive" the two forensic experts who examined him. Schwartz repeated disclaimers in the institute's reports to the health department that said it was impossible to sort fact from fiction in the alleged victims' accusations and Reardon's denials. But one of the experts, Dr. Peter M. Zeman, said that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have tried to shut down Reardon in 1991 — two years before Reardon resigned from St. Francis and stopped practicing. "In the past 17 years the psychiatric profession has become much more knowledgeable and sophisticated concerning the deceptive behavior practiced by individuals with pedophilia," Zeman wrote in response to written questions posed by The Courant. "Were I to evaluate Dr. Reardon from my present vantage point would I have found him in 1991 to show no evidence of pedophilia? "I think not." Troubled Accusers The first complaints to the health department were filed in 1987 by a brother and sister from Albany, N.Y., who claimed that Reardon had sexually molested them from 1956 to 1961. The health department turned to the Institute of Living to evaluate Reardon. The Hartford-based psychiatric hospital has a national reputation for diagnosing and treating pedophilia. At the time, the institute was receiving referrals from the Roman Catholic Church to look into allegations surfacing about priests abusing children. Reardon was examined twice by Zeman, a top forensic psychiatrist at the institute, first in 1988 and again in 1990-91, after a third accuser came forward. Zeman also requested a second opinion from his colleague, Leslie M. Lothstein, a psychologist known nationally for his work with sex offenders. Zeman and Lothstein did not have the benefit of hindsight when Reardon was sitting in their offices two decades ago. The priest-sex scandal was only beginning to crack the edges of the Catholic Church, and it was still fairly unthinkable to many that a priest or a doctor would be a serial child molester. Moreover, Reardon would be dead nine years before police uncovered the photographic evidence in his house at 155 Griswold Drive in West Hartford that would transform the allegations into something more than the doctor's word against that of his young, and frequently troubled, patients. But what they did have was a handful of chilling and remarkably similar stories that have been repeated over and over again since the discovery of the pornographic pictures. The problem, said Smith, the Avon lawyer, was that when the earliest complaints were filed, the experts discounted the accusers. Smith said it was easy to dismiss the accusers as damaged because typically, they were. Many of Reardon's victims came from troubled homes or were disfigured by anomalies in their sex organs. Pedophiles, she said, often pick their victims that way. If they didn't have emotional issues before they met Reardon, many developed problems in the wake of the alleged abuse, she said. In interviews and legal papers, accusers have described lives disrupted or destroyed by memories of their encounters with Reardon. "One of the problems is that perpetrators are expert at choosing their victims," Smith said. "They pick children who can come from dysfunctional backgrounds, who have problems of self-esteem." The institute's assessments of sex offenders have been at the center of controversy before. During the priest abuse scandal, leaders of the Catholic Church said they often relied on the institute's expertise to decide whether to return accused priests to parish work. Institute officials fired back, saying the church had concealed information and disregarded warnings that the hospital's evaluations should not be used to determine a priest's fitness to continue working. Last week, Schwartz made a similar argument in explaining the clinicians' findings in the Reardon case. "They warned that inconclusive findings should not be used to exonerate Dr. Reardon of the allegations against him," Schwartz said, in his written statement. The Accusers' Words Among the documents produced by the psychiatric institute as part of the Reardon case, a 17-page report by Lothstein dated April 21, 1991, contains the most detail. During the course of his examination, in addition to interviewing Reardon, Lothstein interviewed three of the doctor's accusers. One, a woman who complained to the health department in 1989, came from a troubled family and was exposed to sex and incest before she met Reardon, the report says. She called Reardon "Doc" and detailed how — as a young teenager — she felt ambivalent about her ongoing contact with Reardon. Lothstein concluded that "the overall picture is of a young woman with an extremely chaotic family life who, prior to having any contact with Dr. Reardon, was primed sexually at a very early age. In her framework, all men are potential molesters, abusers and rapists." "Her story, while convincing because of its detail, must be understood within the framework of her overstimulated childhood self," he wrote. Another woman, the sister from Albany who filed one of the first complaints, told Lothstein she was in kindergarten when Reardon enlisted her to participate in one of his so-called growth studies. Reardon was a student at Albany Medical College and lived next door. Her mother befriended Reardon, who offered to provide medical care to her children in their home. Later, he enlisted the girl and her brother to participate in a study of their sexual development. "She recalls that he touched her genitals and masturbated her," Lothstein wrote. Lothstein said the woman recalled being asked by Reardon to move her hips when it started to feel good. "She recalls feeling disgusted," Lothstein's report continues. Lothstein described her as "a grim, sad, tense, angry and schizoid woman" whose story about Reardon "seemed confused." The third alleged victim, the brother from Albany, grew up to become a lawyer with a practice that included pursuing child abuse cases. He told Lothstein that his sexual encounters with Reardon continued from the time he was about 8 until he was 14 or 15 and became interested in girls. The man "was very convincing," Lothstein wrote in his report to the state, saying the alleged victim was able to describe intimate details of Reardon's anatomy — including an appendix scar and very specific descriptions of unique features on his penis and backside. When Lothstein asked Reardon how the man was able to describe him in such great detail, Reardon told Lothstein that he and his young accuser had gone camping together and bathed nude. "Dr. Reardon was able to provide some explanations as to how [the accuser] could describe his genitals and anus with such precision related to camping experiences in which nude bathing was evident," Lothstein wrote in his report. Lothstein in his 1991 report called the male accuser "believable," but concluded: "where the ultimate truth lies is a matter of conjecture." By today's standards, Lothstein acknowledged that nude swimming among boys and men would be considered inappropriate. But in the 1950s and '60s when the incident occurred, he said in written answers, such behavior "did not suggest the red flag they would today." Reardon's Denials Lothstein's examination of Reardon focused sharply on the question of sexual attraction. The endocrinologist told Lothstein about his early sexual experiences and said that he frequently dated women, many — for reasons not explained — named Mary. "He grew to be a tall healthy adult who played high school football and dated a cheerleader," Lothstein wrote. Reardon told Lothstein that he had no interest in children or animals and that his sexual fantasies involved undressing a woman or picturing a woman taking a bath, citing a scene from the 1947 romance film "Forever Amber." Reardon told Lothstein that he was engaged once, to another "Mary," but that she left him for another man. After that, Reardon told Lothstein, he never married because he felt he never had enough money. Reardon, according to the report, said the claims of his accusers were most likely the result of "nosocomial sexual abuse," in which a patient interprets a legitimate medical procedure or examination as a form of molestation. To support that claim, Reardon brought Lothstein a journal article citing the risk that children who are photographed by physicians for legitimate medical reasons will later distort the experience and interpret it as sexual abuse. During the course of the examination, Reardon showed Lothstein photographs he said he had taken during his research. Lothstein wrote that he was impressed that Reardon had obtained informed consent from parents before taking the photos. He also said the pictures he reviewed "are not inconsistent with those obtained in medical photography for the purposes of teaching." Lothstein, in his report, had some criticisms of Reardon, saying his "test results suggested an obsessive personality with compulsive and grandiose features." He said Reardon "seemed unaware of the impact he might have on others." But he also concluded that Reardon "had good social relationships outside of his medical practice and that he is probably well liked by his peers." Lothstein said there was evidence that anxiety was interfering with Reardon's current mental status, though in a follow-up report, Zeman said he believed Reardon's stress was "secondary to the stress which he is experiencing ... [over] the allegations which have been brought against him." Lothstein said two young men Reardon had taken into his home said he had never molested them. He also said Reardon offered to make the women he dated available to investigators. Faced with sharply different accounts told by Reardon and his accusers, Lothstein acknowledged in his report that it was hard to unravel the truth. Lothstein conceded that "there is not enough solid evidence to make a statement beyond saying that it is impossible to determine who is telling the truth." "In no way," the psychologist went on, "should this report be read that Dr. Reardon is innocent of the charges against him. Neither should it be construed that the accusers are simply lying and distorting the truth." Lothstein does, however, make a clear statement of his opinion as to whether or not Reardon had a diagnosable mental illness: "Dr. Reardon," he wrote, "is not a pedophile." Zeman, in a 1991 letter to state health officials that echoed both Lothstein's conclusion and the results of his own 1988 examination, said that Reardon could "practice his medical specialty with reasonable skill and safety." With the reports from Zeman and Lothstein in hand, health department investigators decided not to pursue the sexual abuse complaints and Reardon continued practicing at St. Francis. Then, in 1993, a fourth alleged victim filed a complaint about Reardon with the Hartford County Medical Association. Zeman then changed his opinion. "The complaint … when considered along with the three past complaints, raises major concerns from my perspective as to Dr. Reardon's ability to practice his medical specialty with reasonable skill and safety," Zeman wrote in a letter to the county medical association, which at the time also had a role in disciplining doctors. Only then did the state open disciplinary hearings aimed at revoking Reardon's license to practice medicine, sparking media attention. At those hearings, Zeman testified that Reardon was indeed a pedophile. Doctors Duped It is unclear whether state health officials relied solely on the Institute of Living experts when they decided not to pursue the complaints against Reardon filed in 1987 and 1989. The department says it destroyed all paperwork related to the Reardon case under a statewide policy of systematic records destruction. And health department investigators who worked on the case at the time declined to discuss the case, instead issuing a statement through a department spokesman. "The department's ability to provide full and accurate information about this investigation is very limited," health department spokesman William Gerrish said in the statement. "Those involved have only vague recollections and could only speculate on events and their circumstances that occurred over fifteen years ago." Doctors at the Institute of Living say they were duped. "In retrospect, Dr. Reardon was obviously an accomplished liar who was able to deceive two very competent forensic experts," Schwartz said in a statement. In his written answers to questions from The Courant, Zeman acknowledged that Reardon's denials weighed heavily in his 1988 and 1991 conclusions that the doctor was not a pedophile. Without a specific diagnosis of a sexual disorder, Zeman says now, he could not conclude that it was unsafe for Reardon to practice. "The diagnosis of pedophilia, which encompasses a broad range of sexual misconduct with children, would be required to reach a finding of impairment and therefore inability to practice medicine safely," Zeman wrote. "Therefore, the question as to whether Dr. Reardon could be diagnosed as a pedophile was central to the charge from the [health] department." Officials at St. Francis said they were aware of the psychiatric reports, but declined to comment further. The health department hearings ended after Reardon retired from St. Francis in 1993. Two years later, he signed an order promising never to practice medicine again. Reardon died from heart failure and smoking-related lung disease in September 1998 and it appeared that any evidence would remain buried with him. — until West Hartford police found the hidden cache. Now, the accusers who have come forward since the discovery of the photographic evidence — especially some of those whose abuse allegedly occurred after the first complaint was filed in 1987 — wonder if Reardon could have been stopped sooner. Those accusers, five boys and a girl now in their late 20s and early 30s, say Reardon fondled them and photographed them naked in sexually provocative positions from 1987 to 1993 — the same period as the investigations of Reardon were taking place. "It adds up to a human tragedy," Smith said. Contact Hilary Waldman at hwaldman@courant.com.
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