Three years ago, we brought you the story of Richard Edison, a South Florida plastic surgeon who ran a practice at which five patients had died during routine procedures. Once, he left a sponge in a woman's breast and said she'd left it there herself. The patient went on to call him an "unbelievable human being" who needed to be "squashed like a bug."
He faces a civil suit now that, if it actually makes it to trial, would do just that. From the 2009 story:
A Massachusetts man filed a lawsuit in January that alleges Edison molested him when he was a child over a period of two years beginning in 1974. At the time, Edison was in his 20s and a student at University of Massachusetts Medical School. His accuser, Tim Clark, was an 11-year-old boy.
Clark claims that Edison, whose attorney denies the allegation, befriended him and would take him to his apartment, where he would give him marijuana and sometimes beer before sexually assaulting him. The scene repeated itself numerous times over the next two years, Clark alleges. Even after his mother moved him to two different apartment complexes, Edison would show up and the abusive routine would start up again, he contends.
Clark said he'd repressed all of those memories until Mother's Day 2008, when he said it all came back to him when he visited his mother's grave. Edison's lawyer has denied the allegations all along, calling them an "unmitigated lie."
"There is absolutely no truth to this," Edison's attorney, Stephen Cohen, said in 2009. "There may be criminal conduct on the other side, in the area of extortion. As it goes forward, perhaps perjury as well."
The court file is a lengthy list of motions stretching over three years, but a court date was set earlier this week: Pending further delays, Clark and Edison will go before a jury July 9 in Worcester, Massachusetts, though a status conference set for the end of May could shuffle things around.
Edison filed to dismiss the charges last month on the grounds that Clark's claims were far outside the three-year statute of limitations on sexual battery. It's not clear whether this also applies to civil suits, but the motion was denied; Edison is likewise not helped in that regard by Massachusetts courts that have ruled time victims spent repressing memories don't count toward the statute of limitations.
For more details about the case, check out
our original story; it's tough to monitor court cases from 1,400 miles away, but we'll keep an eye on it.
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