For Dr. Raul Ixtlahuac and his supporters, there was an
outpouring of joyful relief on Wednesday.For the women who accused
the Gilroy Kaiser Permanente physician of sexually assaulting them
during gynecological exams, it was instead a day for sadness and
frustration.
For Dr. Raul Ixtlahuac and his supporters, there was an outpouring of joyful relief on Wednesday.
For the women who accused the Gilroy Kaiser Permanente physician of sexually assaulting them during gynecological exams, it was instead a day for sadness and frustration.After deliberating for a little more than a day, a jury found Ixtlahuac innocent of five felony sex-crime charges that had threatened to send him to prison for more than a decade and ruin his medical career.
In March, a jury of the same gender makeup – eight women and four men – deadlocked on the charges, prompting this retrial, which began Oct. 6.
For the doctor, three years of intense turmoil is over. Ixtlahuac was emotionally overwhelmed when the verdict was read at about 11 a.m., according to his defense lawyer, Doron Weinberg.
“We are very, very relieved and very grateful to the jury,” Weinberg said. “It’s reassuring that a group of citizens could look at a case this complicated and this emotional … and they could understand that (Ixtlahuac) is innocent. … They understood that the witnesses may believe and may feel that something happened when in fact nothing happened.”
Ixtlahuac could not be reached for comment.
For the prosecution, it came as a hard blow to find that five women’s claims of sexual assault had not been enough to convince jurors.
“I’m terribly disappointed for the victims,” Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham said. “They know what happened to them. But at the same time, I respect the jury’s verdict. They worked hard. They seemed like an intelligent group of people. But I’m incredibly disappointed.”
Also unhappy was Evelyn (last name withheld), one of Ixtlahuac’s five accusers.
“I got up there, told the truth, hoping that people would believe, not wanting this to happen to anyone in the future,” Evelyn said. “What happens if he goes back to practicing and, God forbid, this happens again? Are people going to come forward?
“You’re always told to tell the truth, and the system failed me,” Evelyn added. “It’s just not fair. … But I can put this behind me and move on. There’s nothing more I can do.”
Four of the charges were for unlawful sexual penetration, in which four women – including Evelyn – accused Ixtlahuac of putting his penis in their vaginas during pelvic examinations, with their feet up in stirrups and their view obscured by a drape. For the fifth charge, sexual battery, a woman said Ixtlahuac rubbed her clitoris sexually during such an exam.
Ixtlahuac consistently denied these charges. Weinberg argued that the women mistook Ixtlahuac’s standard medical procedures for sexual acts.
Ixtlahuac can now return to practice family medicine, but the question remains whether he will do so again in Gilroy or with Kaiser at all. The company had put him on paid administrative leave pending the trial’s results. The state suspended his medical license for a time but later restored it with the restriction that he could not see patients unsupervised. Nevertheless, he has not practiced since his May 2001 arrest.
The jury in March voted 10-2 in favor of guilty on two of the penetration counts and 9-3 in favor of guilty on the other three charges.
Each of Ixtlahuac’s accusers has sued both him and Kaiser Permanente in civil court, but the status of those was unknown as of press time.
