Reardon Case Finally Headed to Court

Hartford Courant
Edmund H. Mahony
March 06, 2011

It has been more than 40 years since the Hartford medical establishment quietly buried the first documented complaint. But the waiting could end this week for the adults who say that, as children, they were sexually brutalized by a physician purporting to conduct medical research at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

After years of unsuccessful settlement talks, a jury could be seated this week in a suit against the hospital by the first of about 90 victims of Dr. George Reardon.

Reardon, who died in 1998, had been the chief of endocrinology at St. Francis, where he is accused of abusing as many as 500 children and adolescents after persuading their parents to enroll them in his human growth study.

The collective case against Reardon and St. Francis — hundreds of suspected victims, about 90 individuals who filed suit and an additional 60 or so whose suits fell outside the statute of limitations for child abuse — is believed to be one of the largest of its kind. Tens of millions of dollars in liability could be at stake, according to lawyers following the case.

The children-turned-adults who are suing argue that the hospital permitted Reardon to engage in and extensively photograph decades of abuse by failing to supervise an employee who was using hospital time, space and grant money ostensibly to collect data on human subjects.

St. Francis declined to discuss its defense before trial, but has suggested previously that Reardon was uncannily successful in keeping whatever he did secret, that the hospital never got a complaint from a child or parent, and that, after an allegation was made to a state agency in the late 1980s, Reardon resigned.

Barring an 11th-hour settlement, jury selection in the first case begins Tuesday in Superior Court in Waterbury before Judge Dan Shaban. The trial is scheduled to begin in April. It now seems possible, because of a recent order by Shaban, that the remainder of the Reardon-based suits against St. Francis will continue — singly and sequentially — into the foreseeable future.

Another judge had ordered previously that the opening trial consist of four consolidated cases. Both sides — St. Francis and the multiple lawyers representing dozens of plaintiffs — were to choose two cases each, presumably their strongest.

But the St. Francis lawyers, with the Hartford office of Day Pitney, persuaded Shaban to separate the cases. They argued that the best cases chosen by lawyers on opposite sides of a question are too dissimilar to be tried together. According to the hospital argument, a case with glaring evidence against Reardon might have convinced a divided jury to find against the hospital in a companion case where the evidence was relatively weak.

The result is that the first trial will be based on one lawsuit, by a single, self-described Reardon victim against the hospital and its affiliated St. Francis Care Inc. As is the case with all the plaintiffs, the victim has been granted anonymity, although Shaban has said he may revisit an order that instructs the parties to refer to all plaintiffs as John or Jane Doe.

What is known about the first plaintiff is that he is male and typical of those who claim to have been abused by Reardon. He is now middle-aged and lives in Greater Hartford. He was a subject of Reardon's growth study between 1977 and 1985. As is the case with other victims, Reardon is accused of simultaneously abusing the plaintiff's three siblings. The plaintiff is represented by the New Haven law firm Stratton Faxon.

Doctor's 'Growth Study'

Reardon arrived in Hartford 14 years before the first victim claims his abuse began. Reardon attended medical school in Albany from 1957 to 1961 and served two years with the U.S. Navy in Newport from 1961 to 63. He was hired by St. Francis and was appointed its chief of endocrinology in 1963. Lawyers for the first plaintiff are expected to argue that Reardon was pushing a study of normal and abnormal child growth patterns even before a decision was made to hire him.

In the early 1960s, St. Francis and other hospitals were expanding their research capabilities for reasons that included taking advantage of federal research grants. Plaintiffs' lawyers have acquired documents showing that St. Francis created a committee to oversee research in 1961.

Reardon submitted his research proposal to St. Francis in 1963 and 1964, according to materials obtained by lawyers representing the plaintiffs. Those records show that the proposal was approved and that the hospital began funding the research. The lawyers also have obtained copies of written agreements between the hospital and a federal grant-issuing agency that acknowledge the sensitivity of research on human subjects and the recognition by St. Francis of internationally recognized study guidelines.

Lawyers who have seen Reardon's research say he collected and recorded data with great precision. But the people who describe themselves as his victims said much of his so-called research was highly abusive and irregular.

They claim in their suits that he made children pose for photographs in the nude, with other children and in sexually suggestive poses. At times, they said, he ordered children to simulate sex acts with one another. They said he manipulated their genitalia and photographed them with objects inserted into their bodies. He purported to measure the prostate glands of prepubescent boys. In many cases, the victims say Reardon examined them while wearing a pistol in a shoulder holster beneath his laboratory coat.

The suits claim that Reardon obtained subjects for his study through a variety of means. Some parents brought him children with developmental abnormalities. Some were referred by pediatricians. He met others by spending time at places where youths congregated, such as sporting events. When a parent brought one child to Reardon, he would often ask — and the parents often would agree — to be allowed to study all the children in the family.

One plaintiff lawyer called Reardon's growth study a "sinisterly brilliant" cover for pedophilia.

Stopping Reardon

The parents of the plaintiff in the first suit were referred to Reardon by a Hartford pediatrician. The boy had three siblings, and his mother brought all four children on the initial visit to Reardon, people with knowledge of the case said.

Reardon proposed involving all the children in his study. The mother agreed. Reardon's research records show that he eventually excused the youngest child because she was uncooperative. She was 3 to 4 years old, according to lawyers who have studied the research records.

Seven years earlier, in 1970, another mother of another boy whom Reardon entered in his study had complained to the Hartford County Medical Association, which at the time was authorized to investigate complaints against doctors. There is no record that St. Francis was notified of the complaint, according to lawyers familiar with the events.

The mother was persuaded to drop her complaint. But a senior officer in the association, who has since died, complained to Reardon by letter that Reardon's practice of photographing naked children without a chaperone present was, at best, highly naïve.

Reardon hid the correspondence associated with the 1970 complaint in his West Hartford house, along with thousands of slides made from his pornographic photographs.

Reardon's so-called research ended with the first public complaint against him in 1987. The complaint dated from Reardon's time at medical school in Albany, N.Y., in the late 1950s and '60s. While a student, he rented rooms from a family with two young children.

In 1987, the children had grown up but were troubled by memories of what they called abuse by Reardon. They tracked him to Hartford and complained to the state Department of Health. St. Francis was notified of the complaints but didn't act against Reardon.

The state did not move against Reardon either, until 1993. By then, two additional complaints had been filed and the health department asked the state Medical Examining Board to begin measures to revoke his license. Reardon resigned from the hospital in 1993 and chose not to renew his medical license in an unsuccessful effort to stop the state investigation.

In 1995, the Medical Examining Board dropped proceedings against Reardon in exchange for his promise never to practice medicine again, anywhere.

Reardon died three years later, but his purported growth study outlived him.

1st Cache Discarded

Reardon, a bachelor, willed his West Hartford home to three boys he described as foster children. Not long after his death, the boys found pornographic slides and motion picture film hidden behind paneling in the cellar of the home. Rather than calling the police, the boys called a relative of Reardon, who disposed of the materials, according to information collected through the lawsuits.

The materials discovered by the boys in 1998 is not believed to have been publicly reported until now.

But a second cache of pornographic images, discovered by new owners of the home in 2007, was widely reported. With the second cache of images were written records — including a lengthy memo written by Reardon — related to the hushed-up complaint brought by a mother in 1970.

The 2007 materials were confiscated by the West Hartford Police Department and eventually shared with the people who say they are Reardon victims. Several slides depict the man bringing the first suit against St. Francis. In them, he is a Reardon subject, three decades younger.