Note to readers • This story describes explicit details of alleged sexual assault.
Utah County prosecutors on Tuesday filed more than a dozen new felony charges against OB-GYN David Broadbent, accusing him of sexually assaulting three of his patients during pregnancy exams.
These counts are in addition to two felonies Broadbent already faces for allegedly sexually abusing a different patient. In total, prosecutors have now charged the doctor with 13 counts of object rape and two charges of forcible sexual abuse.
If convicted, Broadbent could face up to life in prison.
In the new charges, prosecutors allege that Broadbent put his fingers inside the three patients’ vaginas without a medical reason to do so:
• One woman, identified in court records as M.S., reported to police that during a 2014 appointment, she felt Broadbent making a “circular motion” with his fingers while he was conducting a Pap smear. The OB-GYN told her that he “had to stimulate her” in order to get a speculum inserted, prosecutors allege.
At a different appointment later that year, prosecutors say Broadbent again “was trying to stimulate” the same woman during an appointment to have an IUD placed.
Then, in 2016, when M.S. was 7 months pregnant, prosecutors allege Broadbent inserted his fingers into M.S.’s vagina “to try to move the baby.” He did this during her next six exams as well, according to prosecutors.
“M.S. had two prior c-sections and there was no reason to try to turn the baby,” prosecutors wrote in charging documents. “The child was ultimately delivered by c-section.”
• Another patient, M.B., told Provo police that she saw Broadbent in 2018 for a prenatal checkup when she was 8 months pregnant. She similarly reported that Broadbent put his fingers in her vagina and moved them “in a circular motion,” and also caused her pain during the exam.
• The third alleged victim, A.B., said that, during a vaginal exam in 2020, when she was 5 months pregnant, Broadbent began “moving his fingers around in an upward direction.”
“There was no documentation of any medical purpose for the defendant’s actions,” prosecutors wrote in charging documents.
Defense attorney Cara Tangaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, but she has previously said that her client “adamantly denies sexually abusing any of his patients.” Broadbent has agreed to stop practicing medicine while the police investigation and prosecution continue.
At least 49 women have reported to Provo police that Broadbent sexually abused them during exams, and prosecutors have been weighing whether to file charges for two years. It is not clear whether the Utah County attorney’s office has finished that process; a spokesperson for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many of the women who reported to police allege Broadbent inappropriately touched their breasts, vaginas and rectums during exams — often without warning or explanation, and in ways that hurt them and made them feel violated.
Other former patients, along with many of the women who went to police, have also sued Broadbent or the hospitals where he worked, with a total of nearly 240 women making sexual assault allegations in two civil lawsuits.
