Former gynecologist gets 11 year prison sentence for sexually abusing female patients

A former gynecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for sexually abusing female patients.

Dr. James Heaps, 66, has been in custody since a jury convicted him in October of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of two patients. He had pleaded not guilty to 21 felony counts in the sexual assaults of seven women between 2009 and 2018 and the jury found him not guilty of seven of the 21 counts and was deadlocked on the remaining charges.

Judge Michael D. Carter ordered him to register as a sex offender, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said, following sentencing.

Heaps was arrested in 2019 and indicted in 2021 on multiple counts each of sexual battery by fraud, sexual exploitation of a patient and sexual penetration of an unconscious person by fraudulent representation.

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UCLA agreed to pay nearly $700 million in lawsuit settlements to hundreds of Heaps’ patients.

UCLA patients said Heaps groped them, made suggestive comments or conducted unnecessarily invasive exams during his 35-year career. The patients who brought the lawsuits said the university ignored their complaints and deliberately concealed abuse that happened for decades.

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