A retired Indianapolis fertility doctor accused of inseminating patients with his own sperm is expected to plead guilty to charges that he lied to investigators.
Dr Donald Cline, 78, who pleaded not guilty last year to two counts of obstruction of justice, will appear in court in December for a change of plea hearing.
Attorneys for Cline said Tuesday he plans to plead guilty.
Indiana Dr Donald Cline (pictured in these file photos), who is accused of inseminating patients with his own sperm, is expected to change his plea to guilty to charges that he lied to investigators when he appears in court in December 2017
‘This is the start of some sort of closure,’ said Amber Stafford, whose mother was one of Cline’s patients more than 30 years ago.
Some of the now-adult children of Cline’s former patients filed a complaint with the Indiana attorney general’s office in 2014 after they became suspicious that Cline had inseminated some of his patients with his own sperm instead of that of donors.
Cline initially wrote to investigators denying the allegations.
Paternity tests indicate Cline is likely the biological father of at least two of his patients’ children, according to court records. Those children allege online genetic tests show he may be the father of 20 others.
Accusations that Cline biologically fathered at least eight children were first reported in May 2016 by Indianapolis area Fox affiliate WXIN-TV.
A probable cause affidavit cited him as admitting to six adults who believed they were his children that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times starting in the 1970s.
According to the court document, Cline had told his patients they were receiving sperm from medical or dental residents or medical students and that no single donor’s sperm was used more than three times.
Dr Donald Cline, 78, (pictured in court in this file image) who pleaded not guilty last year to two counts of obstruction of justice, will appear in court in December for a change of plea hearing
The location of retired Dr Donald Cline’s fertility clinic (pictured) in Indianapolis, Indiana
The affidavit said Cline used his own sperm when he didn’t have an available donor sample.
‘Dr Cline admitted to doing wrong by inseminating the women with his own sperm, but felt that he was helping women because they really wanted a baby,’ according to the court document.
‘This wasn’t just a handful of kids or mothers that this happened to that resulted into a handful of children. We’re now into several dozen. And it’s going to continue to grow,’ said Matt White, whose mother was also one of Cline’s patients.
No other charges were filed against Cline because Indiana doesn’t specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm.
Stafford said she hopes the case will be the catalyst for new laws.
‘We want to stop this from happening again because it was wrong on so many levels. Even though there are no laws against it, it was wrong and he needs to own up to what he did and we need to prevent this from happening again,’ Stafford said.
Cline has told the Attorney General’s Office that records dating back several decades were destroyed as Indiana law only requires doctors keep patient records for seven years after their last treatment.
Cline retired in 2009.