When called before the medical board in 1986, Dr. Judith Comeau-Samuel admitted to practices endangering the health of patients at her abortion clinics, but claimed that she had only done so because she was dominated by her husband and manipulated by him via voodoo.
She told police:
“he [the husband] was very powerful and could cause my death, if he wished to do so, lighting candles, going into trances and be seemingly possessed by spirits . . . My husband would have friends and colleagues at our home to participate in these rituals.”
This quote appeared in the “How Abortion “Con Man” Defied the Law” in NY Newsday May 2, 1993.
The police report indicated that Comeau-Samuel and her husband would charge $75 for a pregnancy test. They would then tell the patient she was pregnant, then offer to apply the $75 pregnancy test fee toward the cost of an abortion. Authorities estimated that 25% of the abortions performed at Comeau-Samuel’s facilities were done on non-pregnant women.
Medical board documents indicate that the Medical Board, Commissioner of Health, Regents Review Committee, and Board of Regents all found Comeau-Samuel guilty of:
* 65 counts of “practicing the profession with gross negligence”
* 29 counts of “Permitting, aiding, or abetting an unlicensed person to perform activities requiring a license”
* 90 counts of “Practicing the profession fraudulently”
* 65 counts of “Practicing the profession with gross incompetence”
* 139 counts of “Unprofessional conduct”
The charges related to the following violations at Comeau-Samuel’s two abortion clinics:
* performing abortions on non-pregnant women
* failure to take medical history or perform examinations
* administering general anesthesia without ascertaining if patients had eaten
* administering general anesthesia without proper resuscitative equipment
* failing to monitor vital signs during general anesthesia
* failure to provide post-anesthesia evaluations
* failure to give adequate aftercare instructions
* failure to obtain informed consent
* failure to supervise recovery
* failure to test for Rh factor hence jeopardizing health and lives of future babies of Rh-negative patients
* allowing her husband Maxen Samuel to practice without a license
* falsely advertising that medical services would be performed by board-certified specialist when they were performed by non-certified Comeau-Samuel and non-licensed Maxen Samuel
* having pregnancy tests performed by untrained individual if they were performed at all
Comeau-Samuel was fined $19,500, and her license was revoked. Her husband was jailed for performing abortions on non-pregnant women and for practicing medicine without a license. Samuel was also disciplined for having food, coffee, and wine available to patients in the waiting room then not warning them of the danger of eating prior to general anesthesia. Samuel’s attorney said that Samuel admitted to operating without a license, but insisted that he had to do so because he needed the money. The judge reviewing the case ordered the couple to surrender their passports to prevent flight to their native Haiti.
News reports indicate that Samuel was found practicing medicine without a license again in 1993.
Sources: Newsday 12-13-93; New York Daily News 11-13-86; Associated Press 12-14-89; New York Post 3-7-85, 3-8-85; University of the State of New York Case No. 4407 2/4/86
Credit: Christina Dunigan and Life Dynamics
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