Prosecutor: Ohio pediatrician paid patients for sex acts; Defense: Case ‘flat-out extortion’

Prosecutor: Pediatrician molested male patients

HAMILTON, Ohio — A pediatrician performed sex acts on three teen patients during office visits, slipping them cash payments of about $200 as they left, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

Dr. Mark Blankenburg doled out money and prescription drugs to some of the patients even after they became adults, Assistant Butler County Prosecutor Lance Salyers said in opening statements at the doctor’s trial.

“Dr. Mark Blankenburg, for 20 or 30 years now, has been driven by a specific sexual appetite for teenage boys,” Salyers said.

Blankenburg, 53, and his twin, Dr. Scott Blankenburg, also a pediatrician, are accused of sex crimes involving minors. The brother faces a trial in April.

The doctors have practiced for more than 20 years in Hamilton, a city of more than 60,000 situated on gentle hills north of Cincinnati. Authorities said the abuses date to 1987.

Salyers said Mark Blankenburg gave the patients drugs that included the anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium and the pain-reliever Percocet.

Defense attorney Mike Shanks told jurors there is no evidence Blankenburg committed the sex acts. He did acknowledge that Blankenburg paid money to his accusers but said what the state has labeled as bribery was “flat-out extortion.”

It started when a former patient with drug problems wanted money and told Blankenburg he’d tell people the doctor had committed sex acts on him if he didn’t pay up, Shanks said.

“He knew him to be a soft personality,” he said.

That patient says Blankenburg, who was also his Little League coach, began molesting him when he was 13 and gave him $200, Salyers said.

Another patient was 14 or 15 when Blankenburg molested him and stuck $200 in his hand as he left an examining room, Salyers said. A third was about 14 when he was assaulted and given a couple hundred dollars, he said.

A fourth has said he was 6 to 8 years old when Blankenburg fondled him, Salyers told the jury.

But Shanks said those men jumped on the bandwagon after hearing the first accuser’s claims in media reports. One man, who is now in prison for the attempted murder of a police officer, told his grandmother he might be able to use it to his advantage, Shanks said.

The jury will decide 16 sex-related charges against Mark Blankenburg. Twenty-five other charges, including money laundering, bribery and drug trafficking, will be decided by Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth.

(This version CORRECTS population of Hamilton to more than 60,000, not about 50,000.)