Fake gynaecologist who practiced ‘more natural, successful form of IVF’ faces jail
A MAN operated as a fake gynaecologist and raked in almost $400,000 while telling wealthy couples struggling to conceive he was an IVF specialist.
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A MAN operated as a fake gynaecologist and raked in almost $400,000 while telling wealthy couples struggling to conceive he was an IVF specialist.
Raffaele Lorenzo Di Paolo, 61, treated 30 victims over a decade between 2005 and 2015 while he worked out of rooms at Bay St, Brighton, and St Kilda Road.
Di Paolo pleaded guilty at the County Court of Victoria on Thursday to a range of charges including obtaining property by deception, indecent assault and common assault.
Judge Bill Stuart stressed Di Paolo’s crimes were not sexually motivated.
Di Paolo attended university in both Melbourne and Rome but was never awarded a tertiary qualification.
However he offered treatment including internal and external ultrasounds, blood samples, abdominal checks and semen removal from testicles (with a needle).
Over the course of a number of years Di Paolo charged couples for his services on the understanding he practised “a more natural and successful form of IVF treatment”.
The court heard he earned $385,190 with his deception. He is now in custody awaiting sentence.
The fake doctor, who had registered the company Artemedica, told seven women they were pregnant during the course of his deception. But they weren’t.
He told patients he had a clinic in Italy and had left Monash IVF because they didn’t like what he was doing.
Di Paolo had earlier been found guilty at trial of procuring sexual penetration by fraud.
But Prosecutor Ray Gibson told the court: “The prosecution don’t say the accused was motivated by any prurient sexual gratification.”
With one victim, the court heard “a substance said to be sperm was prepared and on the first occasion the process was undertaken, the accused inserted a pipette into (the victim’s) vagina and injected the liquid into her”.
Di Paolo also issued invoices with the letters “MD” and represented himself as a medical practitioner when corresponding with other practitioners in the field.
He took blood from patients for testing and gave internal ultrasound examinations to help women who had failed to get pregnant with traditional fertility treatments, court documents state.
But police said no records could be found of testing ever having been done for the blood, sperm and other bodily samples he collected.
Police were notified after a complaint about Di Paolo was made to a medical watchdog.
Di Paolo was interviewed by police on September 11, 2015.
He claimed to be properly qualified in Italy to perform all treatments in question but stated that he had limited himself to homoeopathy methods only in Victoria.
The court heard he had been convicted in Italy on a charge of abusive exercise of a profession.
Di Paolo will return to court on June 18 when victim impact statements will be heard.