EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains disturbing descriptions of sexual assault.
A former family doctor who has been accused of abuse by more than 160 of his patients surrendered to authorities Friday in Oregon, where he was arraigned on felony sexual abuse charges.
David B. Farley turned himself in at the Clackamas County Jail in the early hours of the morning. A county grand jury indicted Farley on nine counts of sexual abuse and two related counts, all felonies, involving three female patients over a span of 11 years. One of the patients was under 14.
Farley, 67, appeared for his arraignment Friday afternoon via closed-circuit TV and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The courtroom’s gallery was crowded, with some observers weeping quietly during the brief proceeding. A judge set a December 6 trial date.
The moment marks a dramatic turning point in what has been a years-long journey for the scores of women and girls who allege Farley sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment. Some of the survivors have been urging authorities for more than five years to bring him to justice.
“The relief that ran through my body…is indescribable,” a former patient of Farley’s told CNN, speaking anonymously out of caution over the ongoing legal proceedings. “Just to know that finally something is being done on the law enforcement side after so many failures from prior law enforcement agencies brings peace in my life.”
The doctor was first investigated in 2020, when former patients came forward to file complaints with the Oregon Medical Board and local police about his conduct.
Those complaints ranged from excessive breast and pelvic exams on underage patients to ungloved pelvic exams and Farley taking naked photographs of minors for what he claimed were educational purposes. Patients described sexual abuse as well as being subjected to medically unnecessary and painful procedures such as “hymenectomies” in which Farley would insist on breaking their hymens with his hand, telling at least one teenaged patient he was doing so to “make sex more pleasurable.”
Through his attorney, Farley has consistently declined to comment on the allegations against him.
CNN reported on these allegations against Farley last year, sitting down with several of his former patients who described abuse they said they’d experienced and their quest for accountability.
Many of the women found Farley through church. They were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in West Linn, Oregon — just south of Portland — and say he was seen as a leader in their tightknit Mormon community. The women say his status as a respected elder in the congregation conferred a level of trust that allowed him to take advantage of them.
“I had no idea,” one of Farley’s former patients, Nicole Snow, told CNN last year. “I thought this was normal.” Snow said the abuse led to health problems that later caused her to drop out of high school.
The Oregon Medical Board conducted an investigation and revoked Farley’s medical license in October 2020. Meanwhile, the West Linn Police Department began to conduct its own investigation, led by District Attorney John Wentworth, and in 2022 the case went before a grand jury. But after deliberations, the grand jury said it did not have enough evidence for a criminal indictment, and Farley was not charged.
Farley’s former patients allege Wentworth and his team fumbled the case, only allowing testimony from a small fraction of women who had filed police reports. In a March 2024 op-ed for West Linn’s newspaper, Wentworth defended his handling of the case, noting that “all known patients with a colorable claim of abuse testified before the grand jury.” In an email to CNN last year, he blamed “a litany of issues outside our control” for prosecutors’ inability to convince the grand jury.
Many of Farley’s patients joined together in a 2020 civil suit against the former doctor. The lawsuit now includes more than 160 patients – some as young as five years old. The patients also continued to push the only available avenue for Farley to face criminal charges – lobbying for the state’s attorney general to reopen the criminal case.
In December 2024, after years of defending its handling of the case, the Clackamas District Attorney’s office issued a request that the Oregon attorney general take over the investigation. The attorney general’s office did not comment publicly on the matter, except to say that it was reviewing the case.
But the office had quietly been moving forward, conducting confidential sessions with a grand jury that heard witnesses and resulted last week in the indictment. The charges against Farley relate to alleged incidents that occurred between February 2009 and July 2020.
“When these survivors first came forward in 2022 … their claims were scrutinized and dismissed rather than properly investigated,” said attorney Tom D’Amore, who represents Farley’s former patients in their civil lawsuit. “Their commitment to accountability, even in the face of such disregard, is nothing short of heroic.”
“When I was assaulted, I thought I was alone, I thought I had misread things,” former patient Katie Medley, who detailed her abuse in an interview with CNN last year, said in a statement Friday. “My faith in our justice system was tried over the years. But my sister survivors and I have never stopped speaking out and now we have been vindicated.”
Farley has since moved to Nephi, Utah, where he lives with his wife. A longtime friend of his told CNN that as of last year, Farley was still an active member of his church community there.
A judge on Friday set bond for Farley at $500,000. Farley is permitted to leave the state if he posts bond, but signed an extradition waiver stating he won’t contest orders that he return to Oregon for court appearances and to stand trial.
