From the San Francisco Chronicle
A prominent retired psychiatrist charged with molesting five former patients was released from jail Friday after posting bail that a San Mateo County judge had tripled earlier in the day.
More than three dozen men have accused Dr. William Ayres of molesting them as boys dating to 1969, and additional charges are likely, prosecutor Melissa McKowan said.
The 75-year-old Ayres, former head of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, had been released from jail after his wife posted $250,000 bail Monday. On Friday, he returned to jail after a judge increased the bail to $750,000.
Ayers, arrested last week at his San Mateo home, removed his wristwatch, tie, suit jacket and wedding ring in a Redwood City courtroom and handed them to his wife before two bailiffs escorted him out. Ayres, who walks slowly and has a list of medical ailments, was allowed to keep his cane.
Still clutching her husband's belongings as she left the courtroom, Solveig Ayres walked quickly past a group of reporters.
"I can't say anything to you," she said. "I'm sorry."
Judge Carl Holm increased Ayres' bail Friday to $750,000 after prosecutors brought four new child molestation charges Thursday involving two more alleged victims. Ayres is now charged with molesting five boys from 1988 to 1996 when they were from 8 to 12 years old.
McKowan had sought to increase Ayres' bail to $1.8 million -- $100,000 for each of the 18 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 that he faces.
A sheriff's official at the County Jail said late Friday that Ayers had posted the increased bail and had been released.
Philip Barnett, a defense attorney who appeared with Ayres on Friday but will not take on the case because he has represented one of the alleged victims, said Ayres was not a flight risk or a danger to the public.
"If he was going to flee, he would've fled," Barnett said. "The fact is, he's in poor health."
Holm called the charges "very serious" but noted that Ayres is elderly, has no criminal record, is now barred from seeing patients and has no grandchildren or other apparent means to come in contact with young boys.
"I don't see that as likely anymore," Holm said of the possibility that Ayres poses a risk to the public. .
Outside court, McKowan called the bail increase "appropriate."
Prosecutors contend that Ayres, who received scores of patient referrals from the county's juvenile justice system, used his position to victimize vulnerable and troubled boys, knowing they would be hesitant to come forward and probably wouldn't be believed if they did.
At least 37 men have accused Ayres of molesting them as boys, but the bulk of those allegations fall outside the state's statute of limitations, McKowan said.
California law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.
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