March criminal trial set for child psychiatrist accused of molestation

From the Palo Alto Daily News

Dr. William Ayres, the prominent child psychiatrist accused of molesting dozens of pre-adolescent boys in San Mateo County over decades, pleaded not guilty to all charges against him Thursday in his Superior Court arraignment.

Ayres, a 75-year-old former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, is facing a jury trial on charges that he improperly touched seven male patients between the ages of 9 and 12.

A San Mateo County Superior Court judge ruled following a preliminary hearing last month that the evidence is "quite strong" that Ayres molested the patients.

A jury trial was set by another judge on Thursday for March 10 - a date that could be set back by a series of defense motions.

Defense attorney Doron Weinberg told the judge that he plans to file two "complex" motions. Outside the courtroom, Weinberg told reporters that the first motion would be to suppress evidence of a search warrant, which yielded the medical records that police used to find alleged victims of Ayres.

Weinberg, who had already told the press in May that he planned to file such a motion, called the search warrant "improper" and said that it "violates the client-psychotherapist privilege.

If a judge agrees that the warrant should never have been issued, the entire case against Ayres could be invalidated, Weinberg said.

Prosecutors were able to initiate their case against Ayres with the help of three alleged victims, each of whom was located after the search warrant was served.

A judge may determine that the four additional alleged victims who surfaced after Ayres was charged last spring may have come only come forward as a result of media coverage of the child psychiatrist's arrest. If that's the case, Weinberg said, a judge may determine that the case of the additional victims is "fruit of the poisonous tree" - a legal term used to refer to evidence gained from an illegal source.

Weinberg also said that he plans to file a second motion seeking to dismiss "insufficient" evidence and "questionable" rulings by the judge during last month's preliminary hearing. He declined to give more details on the nature of the complaint.

There also are doubts whether the alleged victims truly fall within the statute of limitations, said Weinberg. During last month's preliminary hearing, Weinberg argued the same point unsuccessfully. State law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988. However, Weinberg attempted to argue that many of the seven alleged victims did not meet the requirements of the statute.

The criminal case against Ayres developed in the wake of a 2004 civil suit filed by a former patient who claims to have been molested by Ayres three decades ago. In 2005, Ayres and the former patient - a man now known as James Doe, now in his 40s - settled the suit outside of court for an undisclosed amount of money.

Last month, Ayres filed a $1 million civil suit in San Mateo County Superior Court against an insurance company that he claims provided him malpractice insurance between 1979 and 1981 - during which time James Doe was his patient.

Ayres is suing the Cranford Insurance Company/Merrill Management, which allegedly issued the policy, charging breach of contract and bad faith for the company's failure to pay the settlement in the Doe case. He is also suing the law firm that represented Peninsula Psychiatric Associates - the now-defunct psychiatric facility where Ayres practiced - for professional negligence. Ayres claims that the firm - Beatty, Slattery, Pfalzer, Borges & Brothers LLP - incorrectly informed his insurance company that his malpractice policy had been misplaced or destroyed.

Meanwhile, the parents of James Doe sat in court on Thursday with the parent of another alleged victim and shook their heads in disbelief after learning that Ayres' jury trial would not occur until March. Although the parents' children are not part of the current criminal case against Ayres - both alleged victims are outside the statute of limitations - they have attended every court date for the child psychiatrist and spoken of the doctor with indignation.

"They're going to hold this trial off until he drops dead, is what they're going to do," said Barbara Morrison, a friend of the alleged victims' parents.

Morrison, who lives in Chico, was once involved in a group that protested a controversial sex-education film produced by Ayres in the '60s.

"All these poor children," she said. "Their lives have been destroyed."