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From: sued@none.invalid

A former family doctor who has been accused of abuse by more than 160 of
his patients surrendered to authorities Friday in Oregon, where he was
arraigned on felony sexual abuse charges.

David B. Farley turned himself in at the Clackamas County Jail in the
early hours of the morning. A county grand jury indicted Farley on nine
counts of sexual abuse and two related counts, all felonies, involving
three female patients over a span of 11 years. One of the patients was
under 14.

Farley, 67, appeared for his arraignment Friday afternoon via closed-
circuit TV and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The courtroom’s
gallery was crowded, with some observers weeping quietly during the brief
proceeding. A judge set a December 6 trial date.

The moment marks a dramatic turning point in what has been a years-long
journey for the scores of women and girls who allege Farley sexually
abused them under the guise of medical treatment. Some of the survivors
have been urging authorities for more than five years to bring him to
justice.

“The relief that ran through my body…is indescribable,” a former patient
of Farley’s told CNN, speaking anonymously out of caution over the ongoing
legal proceedings. “Just to know that finally something is being done on
the law enforcement side after so many failures from prior law enforcement
agencies brings peace in my life.”

The doctor was first investigated in 2020, when former patients came
forward to file complaints with the Oregon Medical Board and local police
about his conduct.

Those complaints ranged from excessive breast and pelvic exams on underage
patients to ungloved pelvic exams and Farley taking naked photographs of
minors for what he claimed were educational purposes. Patients described
sexual abuse as well as being subjected to medically unnecessary and
painful procedures such as “hymenectomies” in which Farley would insist on
breaking their hymens with his hand, telling at least one teenaged patient
he was doing so to “make sex more pleasurable.”

Through his attorney, Farley has consistently declined to comment on the
allegations against him.

CNN reported on these allegations against Farley last year, sitting down
with several of his former patients who described abuse they said they’d
experienced and their quest for accountability.

Many of the women found Farley through church. They were members of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in West Linn, Oregon — just
south of Portland — and say he was seen as a leader in their tightknit
Mormon community. The women say his status as a respected elder in the
congregation conferred a level of trust that allowed him to take advantage
of them.

“I had no idea,” one of Farley’s former patients, Nicole Snow, told CNN
last year. “I thought this was normal.” Snow said the abuse led to health
problems that later caused her to drop out of high school.

The Oregon Medical Board conducted an investigation and revoked Farley’s
medical license in October 2020. Meanwhile, the West Linn Police
Department began to conduct its own investigation, led by District
Attorney John Wentworth, and in 2022 the case went before a grand jury.
But after deliberations, the grand jury said it did not have enough
evidence for a criminal indictment, and Farley was not charged.

Farley’s former patients allege Wentworth and his team fumbled the case,
only allowing testimony from a small fraction of women who had filed
police reports. In a March 2024 op-ed for West Linn’s newspaper, Wentworth
defended his handling of the case, noting that “all known patients with a
colorable claim of abuse testified before the grand jury.” In an email to
CNN last year, he blamed “a litany of issues outside our control” for
prosecutors’ inability to convince the grand jury.

Many of Farley’s patients joined together in a 2020 civil suit against the
former doctor. The lawsuit now includes more than 160 patients – some as
young as five years old. The patients also continued to push the only
available avenue for Farley to face criminal charges – lobbying for the
state’s attorney general to reopen the criminal case.

In December 2024, after years of defending its handling of the case, the
Clackamas District Attorney’s office issued a request that the Oregon
attorney general take over the investigation. The attorney general’s
office did not comment publicly on the matter, except to say that it was
reviewing the case.

But the office had quietly been moving forward, conducting confidential
sessions with a grand jury that heard witnesses and resulted last week in
the indictment. The charges against Farley relate to alleged incidents
that occurred between February 2009 and July 2020.

“When these survivors first came forward in 2022 … their claims were
scrutinized and dismissed rather than properly investigated,” said
attorney Tom D’Amore, who represents Farley’s former patients in their
civil lawsuit. “Their commitment to accountability, even in the face of
such disregard, is nothing short of heroic.”

“When I was assaulted, I thought I was alone, I thought I had misread
things,” former patient Katie Medley, who detailed her abuse in an
interview with CNN last year, said in a statement Friday. “My faith in our
justice system was tried over the years. But my sister survivors and I
have never stopped speaking out and now we have been vindicated.”

Farley has since moved to Nephi, Utah, where he lives with his wife. A
longtime friend of his told CNN that as of last year, Farley was still an
active member of his church community there.

A judge on Friday set bond for Farley at $500,000. Farley is permitted to
leave the state if he posts bond, but signed an extradition waiver stating
he won’t contest orders that he return to Oregon for court appearances and
to stand trial.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/us/david-farley-oregon-doctor-arrested

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