LV doctor wins suit brought by son

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 9:53 a.m.

A jury Monday rejected a 48-year-old Las Vegas man's claims that his father, a local obstetrician and gynecologist, sexually and physically abused him when he was a child.

Quincy E. Fortier Jr. claimed that after he watched a videotape about child molestation as part of court-ordered therapy, long "frozen memories" came to the surface about his namesake.

Fortier alleged that he realized he had been sexually abused by his father between the ages of 3 and 14 and that he had also watched his father abuse his siblings and other children.

Fortier filed a lawsuit against Quincy E. Fortier Sr., 89, in October 2000, saying he became addicted to drugs and alcohol at the age of 10 and has experienced a myriad of other problems as the result of the alleged abuse.

The doctor's attorneys, E. Brent Bryson and Thomas Pitaro, told jurors the younger man was after his father's money.

The jury took about an hour to find on behalf of the elder Fortier late Monday. The attorneys involved in the case could not be reached for comment this morning.

Mary Craddock, a woman who claimed the doctor secretly used his own sperm while artificially inseminating her in the 1970s, settled her lawsuit against him in the middle of a trial in August.

Attorneys for both sides in that case declined to comment on the specifics of the settlement, but said the agreement also takes care of a lawsuit filed by a daughter born as a result of the procedure and a potential lawsuit by a son.