Lawsuit: Sheriff falsely labeled doctor a felon

A Coachella Valley surgeon has filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit claiming that the Riverside County Sheriff's Department has destroyed his personal and professional reputation by branding him as a felon.

Doug Roger was jailed for more than 50 days in 2013 after he defied a judge's order to surrender records from his clinic to a debt collector. Roger was held for civil contempt, which is not a crime, but at the Riverside jail he was booked as a felony inmate, creating a false arrest record that he says still plagues him today.

Roger, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, is the director of joint replacement surgery at Desert Regional Medical Center. He has practiced medicine in the Coachella Valley since 1994, operating mostly at Desert Regional, Eisenhower Medical Center and a small private clinic in Rancho Mirage.

Roger says he has lost millions in work due to the jailhouse error, and it is now nearly impossible for him to expand his medical practice.

"I think this has tainted my reputation professionally, and irrevocably, to some degree," he said. "Once you are accused of a felony, and it is public information, you can never really undo that damage. Not completely. Even if you erase everything now, there are printed papers in files at hospitals, and licensing boards."

The sheriff's department declined to comment on Roger's lawsuit. The lawsuit is set for a court hearing on Sept. 29.

Civil contempt is a sanction used to compel a person to comply with a judge's order. For example, civil contempt can be used if a witness refuses to testify or a dead-beat dad refuses to pay child support. Some high-profile cases have involved journalists who are sent to jail after they defy a judge's order to identify a confidential source.

Athough contempt may lead to jail time, that doesn't mean these people are felons, or even criminals at all, said Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor.

"The whole idea of civil contempt is that it is not designed to punish someone. It's designed merely to coerce them into obeying the court's order. A person who is subject to civil contempt should not be characterized as a criminal in any way," Winkler said.

In addition to his lawsuit, Roger has asked three times for Judge Gloria Connor Trask — the judge who initially sent him to jail — to issue a "finding of factual innocence," which would clear his name and destroy his arrest record. County attorneys have opposed each request, saying that such a finding would be used against them in the doctor's lawsuit.

Trask denied the latest request on Monday. She said that Roger is not innocent of contempt, "even if the sheriff's department has incorrectly classified (his) detention."

Records withheld

The court case that led to Roger's imprisonment began in 2009, when the doctor was sued by Revere Financial, a Los Angeles debt collecting agency. Roger and a business partner borrowed about $850,000 to invest in out-of-state real estate, but after the bank that held their loan was taken over, the new bank refused to renew the loan and Roger was unable to repay.

After several years of debt litigation, Trask ordered Roger to turn over financial records from his clinic so that a receiver could find money in his business to repay the debt. Roger handed over most of his records, but withheld some records that he says included private medical information of his patients.

The judge demanded the records again. Roger still refused.

And then, on Oct. 16, 2013, Roger went to jail.

That day, Trask convicted Roger of contempt for violating her court order, and issued a warrant for his arrest. Roger, who says he was in surgery when the warrant was issued, surrendered at the Riverside court house, still dressed in medical scrubs.

The doctor was handcuffed and shackled and walked across the street to the Riverside jail, said Roger's attorney Shaun Murphy.

Then things got worse.

"As they booked him in jail, they had two options," Murphy said. "There was felony button and there was a misdemeanor button. But they don't know how to process civil contempt."

"Generally, they don't put a misdemeanor suspect in jail," Murphy added. "So they probably figured that if he was going to serve time in jail, it must be a felony. So they hit the felony button."

Once Roger was booked as a felon, his arrest record was sent to the state Department of Justice, where it became part of his official criminal history, accessible through a standard background check. The record still exists today, which means it will come up if Roger ever applies for a new job or seeks a medical license in another state.

Roger's status as a "felony inmate" was also published on the county's publicly available inmate locator website.

Once online, misinformation about Roger's jail stint spread through the medical community. Eisenhower sent him a letter concerned about his "felony arrest." The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery nearly pulled his medical certification. Desert Oasis Healthcare, a Palm Springs clinic that had worked with Roger for 12 years, canceled a contract worth millions, citing no reason, according to the lawsuit.

Desert Oasis declined to comment for this story.

"The medical community is very small," Roger said. "As soon as it comes into their office about 'felony' activity by one of their staff members, that spreads like a gasoline fire."

Roger said he spent a majority of his 52-day jail term held at the seventh floor of the Riverside jail, but was later transferred to a jail in Banning. At both jails, Roger was kept out of the general population for his own protection. Roger was released after he pledged to repay all his debts, but never gave up the patient records.

Judicial complaint

In addition to his lawsuit, Roger has filed a complaint against Judge Trask with the Commission on Judicial Performance.

In the document, Roger calls his jail term a "modern day debtor's prison," and alleges that the surgeon was forced into a no-win scenario because the judge did not understand patient privacy laws.

A spokeswoman for the Commission on Judicial Performance said she could not comment on Roger's complaint. The public records of the Commission list no discipline taken against Trask as a result of the complaint.

Trask would not comment for this story. Judges are barred from commenting publicly on ongoing court cases, according to the state code of judicial ethics.

Editor's Note: This story has been changed to correct the spelling of Shaun Murphy's first name. It is Shaun, not Sean.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.