Unlike investigators who checked out and dismissed complaints for years and years, a Travis County jury determined sexual abuse allegations against Dr. Charles Fischer were legitimate and found the former state psychiatrist guilty of multiple felonies on Wednesday.

Fischer was convicted of four counts of sexual assault of a child, each carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The jury will deliberate his sentence on Thursday.

Aside from shaking his head slightly, Fischer, 64, was expressionless as Judge Karen Sage rattled off the string of guilty verdicts. He was spared the most serious charge, aggravated sexual assault of a child, but was found guilty of six counts of indecency of a child by contact and three counts of indecency of a child by exposure.

In total, the jury deliberated for more than nine hours beginning Tuesday afternoon, debating the facts of a trial that started nearly four weeks ago on Oct. 24. They considered 17 felony charges, and found Fischer guilty of 13.

Sage ordered Fischer taken into custody and to spend the evening in jail after prosecutor Mary Farrington argued that he might be a flight risk because of a suitcase visible in a video the defense presented from inside of Fischer’s Westlake home. Fischer has been out on bail during the trial.

Six men who were patients of Fischer’s testified they were abused by the doctor while under his care. Another man said he was 7 or 8 years old when Fischer molested him. The abuse ranged from Fischer masturbating in front of them to sex. Some of the accusers said Fischer gave them money, toys or candy, and he urged them to keep the nature of their relationship a secret. Most of the incidents occurred in his office at Austin State Hospital where Fischer worked for 21 years until he was fired in 2011 over the allegations.

The outcries, all involving young or teenage boys, stretch back more than 25 years when Fischer was working at Waco Center for Youth. Yet for a long time he avoided legal trouble, as investigators and adults gave the benefit of the doubt to a reputable doctor over his mentally ill patients.

A state investigator said she conducted multiple interviews before finding the complaints inconclusive several years ago.

In 2002, a Travis County grand jury examined allegations but determined the evidence to be insufficient to indict Fischer.

One man testified his mother forced him to recant his allegation. Another man’s mother testified that she alerted employees at Austin State Hospital of Fischer’s abuse, but she was told Fischer wouldn’t do such a thing. Eight years later, the man reported the abuse to his therapist. She disclosed the abuse to authorities, which sparked an investigation that led to the unraveling of Fischer’s medical career. Around that time, a man saw Fischer on the news and said he decided to come forward to finally report abuse from years earlier.

In Tuesday’s closing arguments, Farrington told the jury that one of Fischer’s accusers was "a dream" patient because he was sexually active and because employees at Austin State Hospital knew him to be a liar. Fischer’s defense attorneys, Gerry Morris and Chris Gunter, argued that because the men suffer from mental disorders they might be lying or have false memories. Fischer spent $65,000 for two psychologists to testify about psychosis.

During sentencing, the jury heard for the first time about Fischer’s public lewdness charge from 2013 when he was arrested for having sex near Zilker Clubhouse while out on bond. An Austin police officer testified that, while patrolling the area, he encountered Fischer having oral sex with a man. A Thursday court appearance for that charge will be reset.