1-2-04 Abortion doctor gets 34 years for sex abuse of patients
Brian Finkel, a once prominent Phoenix abortion doctor, was
sentenced to more than 34 years in prison Friday for sexually abusing patients
over a span of nearly two decades in his high-profile practice.
Finkel was also ordered to register as a sex offender and placed on lifetime
probation should he serve out his 34¾ -year prison sentence.
A jury convicted the 54-year-old physician last month on 22 counts of sex
abuse. It also acquitted him of 34 more counts, including six of the more
serious charges of sexual assault.
The sentencing comes after three months of emotion-packed testimony from 32
victims who said the doctor pinched their breasts, or kissed or fondled them
during examinations. He denied the charges.
Jurors deliberated 15 days before reaching their verdict. They refused to talk
about how they reached the verdict.
Finkel, who performed more than 30,000 abortions over the past 20 years, had
become a national figure in the 1990s. He often appeared on network talk shows
denouncing the growing violence of abortion protesters, who he compared to
terrorists.
He wore a bullet-proof vest and patrolled his Phoenix abortion clinic with a
gun, saying they were necessary to protect himself and his clients from
attacks.