By The Opinion
A former UCLA campus gynecologist whose conviction for sex crimes against two women was overturned by an appeals court in February, pleaded guilty Tuesday to 13 felonies against five women.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo immediately sentenced James Mason Heaps to 11 years in prison, the same sentence he was serving before his October 2022 sentence was annulled.
The 69-year-old former doctor must also register as a sex offender for life.
Heaps, whose trial was held in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom just across the hall from the courtroom where he pleaded guilty, appeared dressed in orange prison garb as he pleaded guilty, one by one, to six counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person by deception, five counts of sexual assault by fraud and two counts of sexual exploitation of a patient.
According to the grand jury indictment, the charges concern crimes committed against the five women between 2013 and 2018. A remaining charge of sexual assault by deception was dismissed as a result of the agreement reached between the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the defendant.
According to ABC7, one of the victims, who identified herself outside of court as Nicole Gumpert, told the defendant in court: “I wasn’t alone. Generation one of many… The truth of what happened that day has always been difficult to bear: the deep pain that you, a former doctor, could violate me and your oath to do no harm. He chose the wrong person. I didn’t know who I am. Now he knows. “He has finally admitted what he did.”
He stated that the prison sentence “falls far short of what justice really demands,” but told the former gynecologist that his name “will have no honor, no dignity, no redemption, only the permanent and irreversible stain of what he chose to do.”
In a statement read by Deputy Prosecutor Rosa Zavala, another of the victims wrote: “I decided not to be present today because I never want to see this person again. I trusted him as a medical professional, and he betrayed that trust in the most profound and unacceptable way. What happened to me was not only inappropriate, but a sexual assault.”
He pointed out that “nothing can undo what he did”but wrote that he did find “some sense of justice” in him pleading guilty and registering as a sex offender for life.
Keep reading:
– Unique Hampshire therapist is accused of sexually assaulting a patient during a session.
– Los Angeles dentist is accused of sexually abusing immigrant women in the middle of his office.
