A DOCTOR described as the resident physician to the twisted sex cult Nxivm has been charged by a New York oversight board with illegally conducting human experiments.

The action comes eight months after the state Health Department refused to act on a complaint from a former cult member who alleged that Dr Brandon Porter, 44, forced her to watch disturbing rape and dismemberment videos for a “fright study” he was conducting, the New York Post reports.

Jennifer Kobelt, the former member of the notorious cult whose leaders are accused of brainwashing and blackmailing women into becoming sex slaves, said in her August 2017 complaint that Porter may have performed his “fright study” on as many as 100 people.

“He continued to film my reaction for at least 10 minutes as I just sat there, dry heaving like I was going to puke and crying very hard,” Kobelt, a Canadian actress, said in the complaint to the Health Department, adding that Porter began showing her the violent images without warning.

“He failed me, not only as a friend but as the medical practitioner I had trusted on numerous occasions with my health while I was in New York,” Kobelt said in the complaint.

In a September six, 2017, letter, the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct told Kobelt it would not investigate Porter, adding that “the issues you have described are not medical misconduct.”

But the OMPC has now accused Porter of moral unfitness, gross negligence and gross incompetence among other charges. He is accused of showing “human subjects an actual video of the horrific and brutal murders and dismemberment of four women by machetes; and violent film clips, including a male African-American being viciously stomped by a Nazi; a conscious male being forced to eat a portion of his own brain matter; and a graphic gang rape.”

He is also charged with violating state law for improperly conducting studies on obsessive compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome and one monitoring the brain waves of those who attended Nxivm programs.

The state also slapped him for not reporting to health officials that many of the attendees, including children, at a 2016 Nxivm event became ill with an infectious illness that produced flu-like symptoms, vomiting and diarrhoea.

A hearing on the charges is scheduled for June 27. If the charges are substantiated, Porter could have his medical license revoked or suspended.

Porter, an internist, resigned from St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany in upstate New York last fall and reportedly fled town. He received his medical degree from the University of Iowa and got his New York medical license in 2009.

The state Health Department would not comment on the OPMC’s action and Kobelt declined to comment. Porter did not return a request for comment.

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This article originally appeared on the New York Post and has been republished with permission.