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Local chiropractor testifies, denies allegations
The tailbone adjustment is lawful and clinically accepted, the chiropractor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — Dr. Gregory S. Dew denied allegations of sexual abuse made against him by his former gymnastics students and chiropractic patients as he testified in his own defense.
“I’m just telling the truth as I know it,” Dr. Dew said under cross-examination Wednesday by Natasha K. Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor. “There are two sides to every story. I’m giving you my side.”
Dr. Dew’s jury trial began Monday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Dr. Dew, 46, of Kelly Park Road, Columbiana, is on trial on multiple rape and gross sexual imposition charges contained in two indictments.
The first indictment alleges he engaged in sexual activity with two girls, ages 15 to 17, who were his students at the Youngstown Gymnastics Center in Boardman between 1990 and 1992, before he became a chiropractor.
Dr. Dew was fired from the Physicians Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center in Boardman, where he was a chiropractor, immediately after his March 2007 arrest on those charges.
The second indictment alleges Dr. Dew sexually abused three adult women who were his chiropractic patients between 2005 and 2007.
Dr. Dew said there were typically 50 to 100 people in the gym at the gymnastics center, including students and coaches, and that he was never alone with either of the gymnastics students he was accused of sexually abusing.
Under examination by his lawyer, Elizabeth Kelley of Cleveland, he acknowledged having once been in a hot tub with one of the girls with many other people in and around the hot tub, but he denied placing his hand under the girl’s bikini.
He acknowledged hugging one of the girls at a roadside rest stop while a caravan of contestants was returning home from a national qualifying meet in order to console her after her disappointing performance, but said their lips accidentally touched.
“I didn’t really intend to kiss her at all,” he said, adding that the encounter occurred while she was calling her father from a pay telephone.
He acknowledged giving the girl back massages “always in the context of coaching’’ but he denied fondling her breasts while doing so.
Dr. Dew was charged with three counts of rape of a Columbiana County woman he was treating for a tailbone injury in his chiropractic practice, with the crimes allegedly having occurred between May 2005 and March 2007.
With her permission and with an attendant always in the treatment room, Dr. Dew said he resorted to internal adjustment of her tailbone digitally through her rectum, which he said is a lawful and medically accepted procedure, after other less-invasive treatments failed.
The woman, who said she had been abused, testified Dr. Dew inserted his finger into her vagina three times during treatments, and the prosecution contended that there is no clinically accepted procedure for doing so.
Dr. Dew said he inserted his finger into her vagina only once with her permission to take pressure off her pelvis after she was injured in a fall in her driveway.
“All these ladies I just mentioned, they’re all out to get you. Is that right?” Frenchko asked in her cross-examination.
Dr. Dew said he wasn’t sure of the motivation of his former gymnastics students “to come forward 18 years later and make charges against me.” But he said he believes one of the accusers among his chiropractic patients has “a large financial stake in this” because she has filed a $100,000 civil lawsuit against him.
“So, are you saying that everyone else is lying except for you?” Frenchko asked.
“There are some things that were said up here that I think are blatant lies. I think there are things up here that were said that are gross misunderstandings,” Dr. Dew replied.
milliken@vindy.com