Gynecologist facing sex and fraud charges

By Mike Carter and Carol Ostrom
Seattle Times staff reporters

Dr. Charles Momah is accused by dozens of women.

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The criminal charges join nearly four dozen civil lawsuits and 19 charges of unprofessional conduct filed against Momah in the past year. Most of the civil cases have been filed by women who say Momah assaulted them. A number of the women say Momah manipulated them with drugs and threats before and after they had been raped.

Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the King County Prosecutor's Office, said yesterday that Momah will be charged with four counts of sexual assault and three counts of insurance fraud.

Donohoe said a three-year statute of limitations for sex crimes had run out for a number of other complaints detectives looked at, precluding charges in those cases. Others, he said, were "reviewed by the Medical Quality Assurance Commission, and some were not criminal in nature."

In all, according to state commission officials, more than 38 woman have come forward to accuse Momah of medical and sexual misconduct since his license was suspended last September.

Momah's attorney, David Allen, said yesterday that Momah is innocent.

"We're looking forward to going to court and establishing his innocence," Allen said.

In papers filed with the state, Momah has denied wrongdoing. He has not appeared before licensing authorities.

Momah's practice as an obstetrician and gynecologist — he had offices in Burien and Federal Way — has been the subject of increasing alarm by state health and licensing officials for nearly five years, according to state records.

Four years before officials moved to suspend his medical license last September, a Department of Health investigator called him a liar and a "bad doctor." Since then, two hospitals rescinded his privileges to admit patients while regulators looked into claims that he was performing major surgeries in his office, according to records.

Momah, who is from Nigeria, was licensed to practice medicine in New York in 1987, and he moved to Washington in 1993. New York authorities censured and reprimanded him in 1999 for provided substandard care to several patients. Authorities there also prosecuted him on charges of Medicaid fraud. While he was acquitted of criminal charges, he agreed to pay back $500,000 to settle a parallel civil case.
 
Many of Momah's patients were low-income women and, according to prosecutors, he preyed on women with drug addictions or other psychological problems that made them vulnerable to his advances and unlikely to go to law enforcement.

Besides the allegations of sexual misconduct, Momah has been accused in the civil lawsuits of performing unnecessary or sloppy surgical procedures. Records indicate that, after his privileges at local hospitals were suspended, Momah continued to perform outpatient surgeries in his office.

In June 2003, state officials charged Momah with lying on an application for renewing his medical license because he failed to reveal that he had been disciplined in New York. He was also accused of providing negligent or incompetent care to five patients, but he was allowed to continue practicing medicine.

Two months later, another woman came forward and accused Momah of raping her after providing her with narcotic painkillers for several months. The woman claimed Momah threatened to reveal her as a drug addict and warned her that the state would take away her child, according to documents.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com. Staff reporter Jessica Blanchard contributed to this story.