Bremerton doctor charged with raping female patients pleads guilty to lesser charges

Andrew Binion | Kitsap

PORT ORCHARD -- A Bremerton doctor accused in 2015 of raping female patients during exams pleaded guilty to significantly reduced charges and may face nine months in jail when he is sentenced next month.

Three-and-a-half years after first filing the charges against Darren Michael Chotiner, 49, of Poulsbo, prosecutors dropped all rape and indecent liberties charges against him and wrote in court documents they would not object to Chotiner serving his sentence on electronic home monitoring.

Chotiner had been charged with two counts of second-degree rape and five counts of indecent liberties, all felonies.

He pleaded guilty to a single felony, second-degree assault, as well as five counts of fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation, gross misdemeanors.

LAWSUIT: Clinic is responsible for doctor charged with sexual assault

Chotiner denied committing the crimes but acknowledged the “substantial risk” of going to trial on the charges prosecutors originally brought forth.

“Therefore, I wish to resolve my case by pleading guilty to these lesser offenses in order to take advantage of a favorable plea bargain,” Chotiner wrote in his guilty plea, filed July 13 in Kitsap County Superior Court.

In pleading to the reduced charges, Chotiner will not be required to register as a sex offender.

Chotiner had been free on bail following his charges and is on electronic home monitoring pending his sentencing hearing, scheduled for Sept. 24. Following Chotiner’s arrest in 2014, the state Department of Health’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission suspended his license.

Bremerton police investigated the case. Following publicity of his arrest on Dec. 2, 2014, for sexually assaulting two women patients he treated at a Peninsula Community Health Services clinic in Bremerton, investigators said several additional victims stepped forward.

A deputy prosecutor told one of the judges on the case that there could be as many as 15 women accusing Chotiner of sexual misconduct while he was claiming to treat them.

The charges to which Chotiner pleaded guilty give the initials of five women victims.

The women on whose behalf those charges were filed reported an array of misconduct. Two women said Chotiner fondled their genitals with his fingers under the guise of treating them and made suggestive comments. Some of the woman said Chotiner appeared to have an erection during the evaluations, and thrust into them while ostensibly giving them massages. One women said it appeared Chotiner had ejaculated in his pants, according to documents.

One woman who reported Chotiner kept “thrusting his genitals into her side” told Bremerton police she was not sure if she should call the police.

“She was not sure if the exam was inappropriate or not,” an investigator wrote in court documents. “She didn't want to accuse Dr. Chotiner and get him into trouble if what he was doing was right.”

Before his arrest, Chotiner had been restricted by the clinic from performing certain sensitive evaluations of women without a chaperone present after he was accused of kissing a female patient in 2011. The state Department of Health and Chotiner agreed to ethics and boundary training along with the chaperone restriction, which the department lifted in 2012.

However, the clinic kept a similar restriction in place that an assistant be present for evaluations when a female patient was “presenting in sensitive way.”

Women told investigators Chotiner behaved differently when a chaperone was present and would more consistently wear gloves during exams, but that the alleged misconduct took place without a chaperone present in the room.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Chad Enright acknowledged that the women feel they were sexually assaulted. He said part of the reason the case took so long to resolve was because authorities were following up with alleged victims, conducting interviews and “digging into the facts a little bit deeper.”

“Based upon the statements of all the witnesses, this is what we believe we could prove,” Enright said of the charges to which Chotiner pleaded guilty.

Chotiner’s attorney, Elizabeth Mount Penner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.