A Portland jury deadlocked last week on the unusual case of a 60-year-old woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted while under anesthesia at a colonoscopy clinic run by a prominent medical group.

The woman awoke from the procedure inexplicably in tears. She felt discomfort in her vaginal area and told a nurse that she thought something “bad” had happened while she was sedated, according to her $3 million lawsuit against The Oregon Clinic.

“I was really confused because it didn’t make sense to me that I would have those kinds of sensations in the place I was in,” the woman testified before jurors. “I was really embarrassed to say anything.”

Several days later, an ER doctor found trauma to the woman’s genitals, and police launched a sexual assault investigation.

The Oregon Clinic adamantly denied that anything sinister had happened the morning of April 21, 2014.

Evidence during the 12-day civil trial pulled jurors in two different directions, half a dozen of them later told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

They had been asked to determine: Had the woman been a victim of sexual battery?

The decision was excruciatingly difficult, they said: The woman was believable, but she had been unconscious during the alleged assault.

Jurors split 6-6, and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson declared a mistrial.

Attorneys for the woman had argued the trial exposed a corporate cover-up.

“We’re summoned here because my client … has had the courage to call a large medical empire out,” Greg Kafoury, one of her lawyers, said in his closing arguments. “From her first contact she had with The Oregon Clinic after this incident, she was called by a woman who said she was the patient advocate, someone who would be on her side. In fact, she was the risk manager.

“From that moment forward, they haven’t been straight with her,” Kafoury said. “And they haven’t been straight with you.”

The Oregon Clinic’s attorneys, however, said the allegation was as outrageous as it was untrue. They offered alternative explanations for the woman’s injuries.

A clinic spokeswoman told The Oregonian/Oregonlive that no clinic employees faced criminal charges or faced discipline by professional regulatory boards that investigated.

In a company statement, clinic representatives said they were disappointed that the jury couldn’t reach a verdict.

“While this result is not the full vindication we were hoping for, we are pleased our medical providers were finally able to testify and explain why these allegations are unfounded,” the statement read.

The clinic operates 60 medical offices throughout the Portland area and has a staff of 250 medical professionals to treat ailments and perform health procedures from “head to toe,” according to its website.

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The woman took the stand for an entire day in a sixth-floor courtroom of the Multnomah County Courthouse in downtown Portland.

The woman had undergone the colonoscopy -- her third -- at an Oregon Clinic office near St. Vincent Medical Center west of the Portland city limits and north of U.S. 26 in unincorporated Washington County.

After awaking in a distraught state, the woman said she went home, hoping to feel better over the next few days.

On the fourth day, when the pain still hadn’t gone away, she went to see her gynecologist, who sent her to Providence St. Vincent’s emergency room. An ER doctor performed an exam and found vaginal abrasions and bleeding from the cervix.

The woman described how the doctor told her she’d been sexually assaulted.

“I said, ‘Are you sure? Is there anything else that could have done this?’” the woman testified. “She said, ‘You have abrasions.’ She was very adamant. ... I was stunned.”

Washington County sheriff’s investigators who delved into the case ultimately suspended it, citing an inability to identify an individual suspect. Three of the four medical providers who treated the woman that day refused to answer questions, according to sheriff’s reports. Dr. Jeffrey Weprin was the only one to agree to a police interview with his lawyer present.

All four of the medical providers, however, testified during the trial and denied assaulting the woman. Three had been in the procedure room -- Weprin, medical assistant Paul Still and nurse anesthetist Scott Jolliffe. Jolliffe wheeled the woman some 20 feet down the hall to a recovery area, attorneys representing the clinic said. There, registered nurse Nora Jensen was waiting.

There was no possibility that a sexual predator could have attacked her in the bustling medical facility, the attorneys said.

“I also want you to think about this: What you have to accept if you are going to buy into what plaintiff’s counsel is selling,” defense attorney Andrew Efaw told jurors. “You have to buy into a cover-up. You have to buy into a vast conspiracy.”

Rather, the woman only believed she was sexually assaulted because the notion was suggested to her later, the clinic’s attorneys said. The woman, the lawyers contended, had a long history of health problems and tended to “catastrophize” her health by thinking the worst.

The abrasions the ER doctor documented could have been caused during the exam and the woman’s bleeding cervix could have naturally occurring, the defense contended.

Efaw referred to the accusations against the medical providers as “preposterous.”

“There’s no plausible scenario where that happens,” Efaw said. “The suggestion is offensive.”

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But attorneys for the woman alleged that the nurse anesthetist was the most likely abuser.

He could have had anywhere from 20 seconds to nearly two minutes alone with the woman as he wheeled her down the hallway, stopped for a set of doors to electronically open and then pushed her around a corner to the recovery area.

“Sexual abusers are the ultimate opportunists,” Kafoury, the woman’s attorney, told jurors. “This is what they live for. ...There’s a moment, they seize it. It only takes a couple of seconds.”

Why did the woman report feeling vaginal pain for days before she went to the emergency room if, as the defense argued, she had suffered the injuries during a pelvic exam, Kafoury asked.

The woman wasn’t “catastrophizing” events, rather she was accepting her diagnosis from the ER doctor, he said.

She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after the incident. Kafoury pointed out that even a defense-hired psychologist determined she wasn’t faking her condition.

In her testimony, the woman said she felt as if her life had ended. The mother of three children retreated to her bedroom, avoided friends, gave up volunteer work and found she could no longer watch some of her favorite TV shows having to do with crime or doctors. She said she was so overwhelmed, she couldn’t organize high school or college graduation parties for her children.

“When this first happened, I really thought I could just shake it off. You know, get on with life,” she said, pausing to fight back tears. “You can’t just shake off PTSD.”

But the woman told jurors that she’s determined to get better.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to be a victim in this,” she said. “I’m going to be a survivor. ... I have a bracelet on. It says, ‘Stronger than yesterday.’ That’s what I think.”

***

At least nine of the 12 jurors would have needed to agree to reach a valid verdict.

Six jurors believed the woman had been sexually assaulted and that the physical evidence was there. Six jurors believed the woman’s lawyers hadn’t proven the assault, according to interviews after the verdict.

They grappled with the question of whether someone had time to assault the woman and how a verdict against The Oregon Clinic would damage the professional reputations of the medical staff involved. All of them are still working at the clinic, with the exception of the nurse anesthetist, who has moved to Phoenix and been relicensed there.

Jurors weren’t told a sheriff’s detective closed the case because the investigation came to a standstill after some of the employees declined to be interviewed by him.

Some jurors said that information could have been important to consider and conceivably could have swayed deliberations.

After the trial, juror Amy Sorensen, who voted in favor of the woman, was one of several jurors who formed a short line outside the courtroom. One by one, they shook the woman’s hand, offered hugs or told her they recognize all that she’s been through.

“I just wanted her to know that’s she’s strong,” Sorensen said. “And to remain strong. Because I know this was hard for her.”

It’s unclear if the case will be retried. The courts system will proceed with plans to schedule a new trial, unless attorneys for both sides reach a settlement.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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