Renowned pediatrician faces sex abuse claims

For children struggling in school, Dr. Melvin Levine has been a great advocate. For decades, Levine, a pediatrician, has championed the idea that poorly performing students are not lazy or dumb, but instead need to be educated in a different way.

Or, as he has summed up his philosophy: "Every child has strengths. No exception."

Levine's advocacy made him famous. PBS broadcast a multipart series, "Misunderstood Minds," based on his work. He appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and his book "A Mind at a Time" became a New York Times best-seller. All Kinds of Minds, the nonprofit he founded with Charles Schwab, has trained 42,000 teachers in his methods, and contracts with dozens of schools each year to carry out his ideas.

The acclaim benefited both Children's Hospital Boston, the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, where he practiced until 1985, and the Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he served as director.

So it came as a shock in March when Carmen Durso, a lawyer in Massachusetts who had sued the Archdiocese of Boston for sexual abuse by priests, held a news conference accusing Levine, 68, of sexually abusing five former patients when they were boys. The accusations relate to events between 1967 and 1985, but the first of the four lawsuits on behalf of these men was filed only three years ago. There are no criminal charges against him.

Levine vehemently denies both the accusations and ever sexually touching a patient. And many defenders argue that he could not have worked at the pinnacle of his profession for so long if the accusations were true.

There have been, however, other complaints dating back 20 years.

In 1985, a few months after he left Boston, court records show that a letter of complaint was sent to the president of Children's Hospital. That complaint turned into a civil lawsuit filed in 1988 in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

There was also a formal complaint to the Massachusetts medical board in 1993. And Dr. William Coleman, a longtime medical colleague, said Levine told him in 2002 that another former patient was claiming sexual abuse.

None of the cases were proved in court. The lawsuit was dismissed in 1991. The Massachusetts medical board did not find enough evidence to act on the 1993 complaint. The patient who made the complaint to Levine in 2002 is now a plaintiff represented by Durso.

But these decisions are not as clear-cut as they may seem. There is little evidence that Children's Hospital, the University of North Carolina or the medical board ever tried to thoroughly investigate the accusations. For instance, in at least two cases, parents and children were never even interviewed. And the institutions did not notify one another about the individual complaints.

The pattern itself may also be troubling. Dr. Douglas Diekema, chairman of the committee on bioethics at the American Academy of Pediatricians, said it was difficult to know how many complaints an average pediatrician would receive during a career because, unless they are proved, such complaints are usually hidden from the public. But, he added, "in my experience, three or more is above average."

Because of the litigation, Levine's lawyers advised him not to be interviewed for this article. He sent a 14-page autobiography that described his career, his hobbies and his wife of 40 years, Bambi. They have no children.

A Rhodes scholar, he attended Harvard Medical School and later joined the faculty. By the 1970s, he was focused on treating children with learning disabilities, winning millions of dollars in grants.

Dr. Paul Dworkin, chairman of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, held a fellowship at Harvard under Levine in the 1970s. He credits Levine with entirely changing the way doctors approach children failing at school.

Dworkin, who said he had only recently heard about the accusations, said it was difficult to imagine Levine hurting a child because he had such obvious empathy. "He had a remarkably good rapport with children," he said.

The five men who have filed lawsuits against Levine say they do not know one another, but their charges are similar: During physical examinations, which parents were discouraged from attending, the boys, ages 5 to 13, were asked to strip and stay that way for the entire exam. They were then allegedly touched inappropriately.

Because of the nature of the accusations, these men have chosen not to disclose their identities to the public. Their names, however, are known to defendants. One plaintiff is in prison, Durso said, because of a "serious charge" relating to carrying a firearm.

Since Durso held a news conference in spring, he says 43 former male patients -- or their mothers speaking for them -- have also said they were victims of abuse. All were treated at Children's Hospital or at the University of North Carolina.

Those from North Carolina are represented by Elizabeth Kuniholm, a lawyer working with Durso. Kuniholm says four men and the parents of two others told their stories to the North Carolina Medical Board. She does not yet know how many will sue.

One of those men, now 28, agreed to meet with the Times. Because his father and sister are prominent educators who do not want to tangle publicly with Levine, he asked that his name not be published. He said he was not planning to sue.

The visits with Levine began when he was 9. His family had moved, and he began struggling in school; his parents worried that he might have a learning disability. Medical records sent to the Times by Kuniholm confirm that this man was a patient of Levine's for several years, with regular visits and physical exams. In addition, the Times interviewed the father, who took him to many appointments and confirms that Levine routinely gave his son a physical exam alone in the room.

The young man said he remembered only the first two visits clearly. He recalled a series of tests related to reading and math, given by Levine's associates. He said Levine met with his parents to discuss the results, then sent them to a waiting room while he conducted a physical examination.

"My mom remembers thinking it was unusual that I was there for educational issues and that he would take me into an exam room unattended," he said. "But my mom didn't want to protest because she trusted him."

In the room, he was asked to strip. He said he remembered sitting nervously on the exam table and staring at his clothes on the floor. Levine, he said, told him he was "very special," and rubbed the boy's penis until it was erect. At the same time he asked if the boy had wet dreams. The man said he did not tell his parents at that time because he felt ashamed.

He came forward, he said, when he read about the lawsuits in a newspaper. It enraged him that Levine had prospered, and he wanted to corroborate the accusations.

"What I can't understand now," he said, "is why this was allowed to go on for so long."

Levine's defenders say none of the complaints was ever substantiated.Also, the similarities in the complaints are suspicious, said Edward Mahoney, a lawyer representing Levine in the current lawsuits. His firm, Martin, Magnuson, McCarthy & Kenney, represented Levine in 1988 as well. "Frankly, we think there is a copycat element," he said.

Coleman, who worked with Levine at the North Carolina clinical center for two decades, added that Levine had seen thousands of patients and that most remained loyal and grateful.

"He had a huge follow-up population of kids who have been coming back over and over," Coleman said.

Based on his lawyers' statements, Levine's defense will most likely rest on the idea of standard practice. Levine has not denied that he examined the boys' genitals, but his lawyers have said in statements that the accusations were most likely based on "distorted or misinterpreted memories." The exams, they said, were medically necessary, even for children with learning and emotional difficulties.

"A thorough assessment includes a complete physical and neurological examination," the lawyers wrote. "Examination of a child's genitals can give the doctor important information about genetic disorders, physical maturity, hormone problems, hernias or conditions relating to the testicles and other medically important issues."

Dr. Nancy Murphy, chairwoman of the council on children with disabilities for the American Academy of Pediatricians, called the statement fair, but only for an initial exam.

Murphy, who is not familiar with Levine's practices, said the primary pediatrician would typically check for physical problems and the consulting doctor would administer neurological exams. She added, "Every time the kids come in, they don't need a complete physical examination." All the men in the four lawsuits say they were subject to at least two physical exams.

Coleman said he stopped conducting physical examinations years ago. But he defended Levine. "He is more thorough and more traditional than the average practitioner," Coleman said.

(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) In 1988 a 17-year-old man filed a lawsuit alleging that, starting when he was 7, Levine, who was then at Children's Hospital, treated him for bowel trouble and sexually abused him.

Although the man's name is on court documents, The Times has withheld it at his family's request.

Court records show that in a letter dated October 1985, just months after Levine had departed for North Carolina, the man's mother wrote Dr. David Weiner, then the president of Children's Hospital, to alert him to her concerns. "In the spring of 1984," she wrote, "while my son and I were on the way to Children's Hospital, he told me that he was frightened about the examination."

"Dr. Levine would always examine his testicles while Chris' penis touched or was located very close to the doctor's cheek," she wrote.

But the mother said no one from Children's Hospital ever interviewed her or her son. Weiner said he could not recall the specific event and therefore did not feel comfortable commenting on the case.

In a written statement, Children's Hospital said there were no complaints about Levine until after he left in 1985. Michelle Davis, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the institution had investigated the accusations and found that Levine's care had been "appropriate within the context of the child's medical needs."

The University of North Carolina says Children's Hospital never relayed information about the complaint. Karen McCall, a spokeswoman for the medical school and hospitals, said they learned of the case from Levine, some time after it was dismissed in 1991.

The hospital did not do an investigation, McCall said, because it "doesn't have a protocol to investigate dismissed lawsuits."

In November 1993 the Board of Registration in Medicine in Massachusetts received a similar complaint. The man, whose name is not available to the public, said that as a child he had seen Levine for bowel trouble in the late 1970s. "Dr. Levine would lay me on the examination table nude," he wrote the board, and play with his penis and discuss his wet dreams.

In a detailed reply to the board, Levine said that he did not remember the patient but that examining testicles was medically necessary, and that children, particularly adolescents, needed to discuss their sexuality.

The board accepted Levine's response. But Russell Aims, the board's spokesman, said there was no evidence that the board had contacted the man filing the complaint. Standards for investigations had changed, Aims added, and today the complainant is always contacted.

In Massachusetts such complaints are a matter of public record once closed, but the medical board is not required to notify the doctor's hospital if there is no formal discipline. The board and Levine never informed the University of North Carolina about this second complaint, McCall said.

Like most hospitals, however, the University of North Carolina does ask its doctors, as part of their credential application, which must be filed every two years, whether they have been the subject of complaints -- even unfounded ones. McCall said that because of legal restraints about personnel files she could not say whether Levine's credential application omitted such information.

Levine's lawyers declined to comment.

In 2002 a patient who is a part of the current lawsuit sent e-mail messages to Levine, complaining of abuse. The e-mail messages were read to The Times by Durso.

These messages were addressed to Levine only, Durso said. But Levine did tell his colleague Coleman, who says he recalled being told about the accusation shortly after Levine appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2002.

Coleman said he knew about the 1988 lawsuit, but not the 1993 medical board complaint. He was under no legal obligation to take action -- informing the hospital, for example. Nor did he suggest that even for Levine's own protection another person be present during exams.

"If you don't believe them, you are not going to respond in a way that implies guilt," Coleman said.

Diekema, the bioethicist, called this an odd response. "To me the most disturbing element is for young children and young adolescents to be examined without a parent," he said. "It strays from what we normally recommend," especially, he said, if there have been previous accusations.

What will happen next for Levine is unclear. The lawsuits may take years to litigate. And the North Carolina medical board, which has strict privacy rules, will not confirm that there is even an investigation. But a person familiar with the board said a decision could be made on Levine by the fall.

Meanwhile, throughout the spring, Levine continued lecturing and promoting All Kinds of Minds, which pays him an annual licensing fee. For 2005, the last year public tax records were available, Levine made $248,123 in compensation and benefits from the nonprofit.

Mary-Dean Barringer, the chief executive of All Kinds of Minds, said most parents were "incredulous" over the accusations. She added that Levine's work would not be compromised even if the allegations were true.

"We wouldn't back away from using the incredible groundbreaking ideas and compassion in understanding how children's minds work," Barringer said.

NYT-08-05-08 2202EDT