From the San Jose Mercury News
Dr. William Ayres, the child psychiatrist accused of molesting dozens of preadolescent boys in San Mateo County over decades, must face trial on charges that he improperly touched seven male patients from the ages of 9 to 12, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge ruled Monday.
The evidence that Ayres molested many of his patients -- instructing boys to strip naked and then stroking their genitals during in-office physical examinations -- is "quite strong," providing sufficient cause to try the child psychiatrist on multiple molestation charges, said Judge Jonathan Karesh at the conclusion of Monday's preliminary hearing.
Ayres, 75, was present at the proceeding, taking notes and showing little emotion.
He will be tried on 20 counts of lewd and lascivious acts against seven children younger than 14.
The hearing, featuring two San Mateo police officers recounting interviews with 22 alleged victims, was laden with graphic testimony and marked the first time that many details of the alleged molestations have come to light.
Altogether, more than a dozen of Ayres' former patients told police that the doctor fondled their genitals during psychiatric visits, providing a litany of details.
Prosecutors say Ayres molested dozens of former patients, but they are bringing charges in connection with only seven alleged victims, whose cases fall within the legal statute of limitations for child molestation.
State law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.
Of the 22 accounts from alleged victims related by police during the hearing, only seven fall within the statute.
Defense attorney Doron Weinberg filed a motion to discount the preliminary hearing testimony involving the alleged victims whose cases lie outside the statute, but Karesh dismissed the motion at the conclusion of the hearing.
Weinberg said outside court that he plans to refile the motion before the jury trial and promised to "litigate several legal issues" in the coming months, including a dispute over the search warrant that police used to build the case against his client.
The warrant, which Weinberg called "highly illegal and improper," enabled police to obtain the child psychiatrist's medical records and contact about 600 former patients to investigate the alleged molestation.
Weinberg dismissed the charges against Ayres as "vague" and "creative," and he defended the physical examinations that Ayres conducted as "perfectly appropriate" for a child psychiatrist.
The medical recollections of the alleged victims have "now been recast by memory and suggestion as inappropriate," Weinberg said.
"Dr. Ayres has been at the forefront of being open and honest with kids about sexuality," he said. "He believes that he is a physician as well as being a psychiatrist, and when treating someone, you treat the whole person."
"He has been misunderstood as a result of that," Weinberg said. "This is not a child molester by any stretch of the imagination."
Weinberg attacked in court the viability of the charges stemming from the seven alleged victims, citing interpretations of the statute of limitations and questioning whether the doctor's former patients could remember events that happened 15 to 20 years ago.
Deputy District Attorney Melissa McKowan, who said outside court that she was "very pleased" with Karesh's ruling, defended the alleged victims' inability to recall exact details during such "significant events" of their lives.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Karesh ordered Ayres to avoid contact with the alleged victims during the next year.
The state Medical Board revoked Ayres' license to practice shortly after his April arrest.
Ayres, who has been out of custody on $750,000 cash bail since April, is expected to appear at the Hall of Justice for his Superior Court arraignment September 6th.
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