Cecil Jacobson - Paternity

Paternity

In 1989, suspicious former patients tipped off a local television station, which investigated and reported on the false pregnancies. Jacobson was sued by numerous patients. Federal prosecutors charged Jacobson with perjury (for false testimony during the civil proceedings) and mail and wire fraud (for the use of the letters and the telephone system as part of his fraudulent practice).

During the course of the criminal investigation, another type of fraud came to light. For a variety of reasons, some patients had arranged to be artificially inseminated with sperm provided by screened, anonymous donors arranged by Jacobson. In order to preserve the anonymity of the donors, Jacobson explained, he identified them in records using code numbers; only Jacobson was to know their true identities. Investigators found no evidence that any donor program actually existed. Some of Jacobson's patients who had conceived through donor insemination agreed to genetic testing. At least seven instances were identified in which Jacobson was the biological father of the patients' children, including one patient who was supposed to have been inseminated with sperm provided by her husband. DNA tests linked Jacobson to at least 15 such children, and it has been suspected that he fathered as many as 75 children by impregnating patients with his own sperm.