Fertility doctor accused of using own sperm to impregnate patients dies in plane crash
The fertility doctor who was accused of using his own sperm to impregnate patients has died.
Dr. Morris Wortman, 72, of Rochester, New York, was a passenger in the experimental aircraft that crashed on Sunday (May 28) in a pasture in Orleans County, after it fell apart mid-air AP reports.
The airplane’s pilot, Earl Luce Jr., of Brockport, was also killed in the crash, according to the county sheriff.
The crash is still under investigation although preliminary findings suggest that ‘the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground in an orchard,’ Sheriff Christopher Bourke said in a news release Monday.
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The aircraft has been identified by the National Transportation Safety board as a Wittman W-5 Buttercup airplane. The fuselage continued west for a further 1,000 to 1,500 yards before the deadly crash.
Prior to his death, Wortman was a well-known OB-GYN who was often targeted by anti-abortion protestors.
In 2021 Wortman was sued by the daughter of one of his patients who became pregnant in the 1980s.
The lawsuit claimed that the doctor had secretly used his own sperm while telling the patient, Jo Ann Levy, that the sperm had been sourced from a local medical student.
Levy was a patient of Wortman in 1985 after her husband Gary was left paraplegic by a drunk driver.
Levy’s daughter, Morgan Hellquist, 36, had also been a patient of Wortman, with whom she underwent numerous examinations and he even fitted her with an IUD.
In 2016, Hellquist got an Ancestry DNA test where it was revealed she had numerous half-siblings also on the platform, including a 37-year-old called David Berry.
The pair both found more half-siblings popping up on the site.
“Then there was five of us. And we were all the same age,” she told Good Morning America. “And six, and then seven. And it started to feel like, well if there's seven there might be 20. And if there's 20, there might be 100. And I started to feel terrified.”
Berry and Hellquist eventually determined their mothers had both conceived after visiting Wortman for artificial insemination and were able to track down one of the doctor’s daughters to ask her to do a test.
The test showed that Hellquist and Berry's DNA matched Wortman's, to which Hellquist ‘sobbed’ when she discovered the truth about the identity of her biological father.
Hellquist filed a lawsuit against Wortman, alleging he committed medical malpractice for treating her as a patient when he likely knew he was her biological father.
Wortman did not comment at the time the lawsuit was filed.
Gregory Robinson