Charlotte doctor accused of sex assault hit with $2M verdict

A Mecklenburg County jury has awarded more than $2 million to two women who accused a Charlotte doctor of sexually assaulting them during their medical exams.

Jurors ordered Dr. Fidelis Edosomwan, owner and president of Americare Health Plaza Medical Center, to pay $1.1 million in actual and punitive damages to each of the women. Lawyers Weekly does not identify alleged sexual assault victims.

An attorney for the woman who spearheaded the suit, Alex Heroy of James McElroy & Diehl in Charlotte, said nearly 40 women have come forward with allegations against Edosomwan, and several testified against him during the trial.

“I asked him (Edosomwan) what his theory was for all these women who didn’t know each other, how they could have strikingly similar allegations against him, and his response was that they had ‘Me Too syndrome,’” Heroy said, referring to the movement to call out sexual violence and harassment.

When asked how the jurors reacted to Edosomwan’s statement, Heroy said: “Shock. Absolute shock.”

Attempts to speak with Edosomwan’s attorney in the civil case, Lisa Hoffman of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick in Charlotte, were unsuccessful.

Heroy’s client alleged in her complaint that Edosomwan first molested her in 2013, while she was on his exam table. She said she immediately notified a nurse about what happened and was told that appropriate action would be taken and that she would never have to see Edosomwan again.

But when she returned in 2015 for a pap smear, Edosomwan entered the room and the woman was “overtaken with fear and shock.” The woman’s child and a nurse were in the room. But when the nurse looked away for a moment, Edosomwan inappropriately touched the woman’s genitals, according to her complaint.

She said that a visibly aroused Edosomwan “closed his white lab coat to cover himself as he left the room.”

While the allegations against Edosomwan were heinous and multiple accusers took the stand to testify against him, the case was far from a slam dunk. Another patient who’d sued the doctor lost at trial before Heroy’s case went before a jury, Heroy said.

“It was daunting. But in that case the doctor merely said something highly inappropriate during the exam,” he added, “versus our case where he actually completed the exam and then molested the patient.”

The judge also excluded Heroy’s expert, who had had concluded, based on personality tests, that his client sustained severe psychological injuries as a result of what Edosomwan had done to her.  

“The judge concluded that the administration of the personality tests did not conform to Daubert standards,” Heroy said.

Still, jurors apparently were swayed by the testimony they heard. After the verdict, Heroy said he and his co-counsel, Kavita Desai, spoke with the jury and there was an “outpouring of emotion.”

“They were crying and hugging us after the conclusion of the trial. They’ve been emailing me,” he added. “The response from the jury has been incredible.”

Heroy said the statute of limitations has expired on the potential civil claims that other patients might have had against Edosomwan. But the doctor still faces criminal charges in connection with the sex assault allegations and is slated to return to court for trial in May.

Edosomwan’s criminal defense lawyer, George Laughrun of Goodman, Carr, Laughrun, Levine & Greene in Charlotte, said he would comb through testimony from the civil trial in preparation for the criminal case.

“You can’t do depositions in criminal cases, but now we’ll have another set of statements under oath from the alleged victims,” he added. “And they were subject to cross examination as well. So not only do we have their original police statements, but we’ve got their depositions and their statements under oath at trial.”

Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @NCLWBantz

VERDICT REPORT – SEXUAL ASSAULT

Amount: $2.2 million

Case name: Confidential

Court: Mecklenburg County Superior Court

Judge: Eric Levinson

Date of verdict: Feb. 14

Attorneys for plaintiffs: Alex Heroy and Kavita Desai of James McElroy & Diehl in Charlotte; Don Higley of the Lanier Law Group in Jamestown

Attorneys for defendant: Lisa Hoffman and Beth Stanfield of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick in Charlotte