Numerous reports from women saying they were sexually molested by Rexburg Dr. LaVar Withers over the past 32 years went essentially unheeded by authorities, The Idaho Statesman reports.

In a copyright series of stories, the newspaper indicated Sunday it was only after a flood of complaints to the state Board of Medicine - a half dozen in a year's time - that the board finally forced Withers to surrender his license.The board's action was taken without explanation or acknowledgment of the claims against Withers, 59, who categorically denied the allegations.

In its Sunday edition, The Post Register in Idaho Falls quoted Board Chairman Donald Bjornson as saying the board believed forcing Withers to give up his license in a negotiated agreement was the fastest way to close his practice down, especially since the board has authority only to regulate licensure, not penalize licensees.

"It was a way to handle things to get compliance quicker than through the hearing," Bjornson told the newspaper. "It seemed like a good thing for him and a good thing for us."

A yearlong investigation by the Madison County prosecutors' office and the state attorney general's office ended last month with a decision not to prosecute.

"It's not an opinion that it didn't happen but that they're not winnable," Steve Clark, who was named special prosecutor for Madison County, told The Post Register. "This decision is not a finding that it did not occur but that they can not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

Prosecutors have just one year to bring charges against someone who fondles a woman's breast, which constituted the bulk of the allegations against Withers.

Without physical evidence, such cases often pit one person's word against another's, and both the attorney general and a special prosecutor decided it would be next to impossible to win a guilty verdict against the Rexburg doctor. Withers will not be tried in criminal court.

More than 80 women have come forward in recent months to accuse Withers of more than three decades of abuse. The Statesman based its stories on interviews with 25 of those women.

"They just did not believe me," Carol Hannah, 54, told The Statesman when she recalled the complaint she filed with Rexburg police in 1965. She accused the doctor of fondling her breasts and genitals during a prenatal examination.

"They belittled me about it because I was a pregnant woman," she said. "Men think sometimes pregnant women make things up."

The only legal action pending is a $255,000 claim filed by Utahn Katherine Proctor of Midway, Wasatch County, against the Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, where she says she was repeatedly molested by Withers while she was a patient there last March.

The claim, a prelude to a formal lawsuit, accuses hospital officials of allowing Withers unsupervised hospital privileges even though they were aware of allegations against him.

The Statesman quoted a number of women as saying they had told other doctors about their experiences with Withers but nothing was done. Doctors acknowledged to the newspaper having heard rumors about Withers but denied ever being told of specific instances.

In 1993, translator Sherri Fullmer said she reported to both Madison Memorial Hospital administrator Keith Steiner and Fremont County prosecutor Penny Stanford that she saw Withers molesting a 25-year-old Hispanic woman who lived in Fremont County.

Stanford said she did not remember the report, although she, too, was aware of the rumors about Withers. Steiner referred questions to his attorney, who declined comment.

The newspaper also said officials in the predominant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were told of allegations against Withers, a member of the LDS Church.

A woman identified by the newspaper only as "Joan" said she reported to LDS Stake President G. Farrell Young last July that Withers had molested her.

"He told me not to go to the police until he had a chance to deal with it," she said.

But after a month without a response, "Joan" said she contacted an official at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, which in turn prompted a response from Young on Aug. 23.

"We have followed up with this matter in very prayerful consideration," Young wrote. "We have pursued the course of action that was deemed most appropriate."

On Oct. 12, church officials confirmed Withers was placed on probation and at least temporarily stripped of the privilege to enter the church's temples or fully participate in some church rituals.

"If that is definitely all they have done, I am disappointed," the woman told the newspaper. "His membership should be taken away."

The Statesman said Young was perplexed at the criticism of his handling of the matter. He said he had no authority to prohibit "Joan" from contacting police and was only asking for time to gather more information.

Young said he wrote the brief letter to the woman because he believed she was "owed a comment" and emphasized he was not required to do even that.

The newspaper reported that additional complaints likely would have been lodged against Withers had it not been for the cloistered, small-town mentality of rural Rexburg, which is home to Ricks College.

Another woman, identified as "Jeanette," 46, said Withers molested her in 1977 while she was a student at Ricks. She feared reprisals, however, and didn't come forward until now.

"There is no way my husband's business would have survived," she said. "This is such a small community."