ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A class action lawsuit filed in federal court is seeking answers about why a pediatric urologist allegedly stored hundreds of private patient photos alongside hundreds of images of child pornography, leaving parents in the dark about whether their children's private images are among them and if those images were shared further.
The lawsuit names Ann Arbor pediatric urologist Dr. Bryan Sack and involves at least 13 potential victims. Authorities were alerted after Dropbox flagged potential child pornography in Sack's personal cloud storage account.
7 News Detroit reporter Brett Kast has the story in the video below:
David Champine, an attorney with Flood Law who spent much of his career prosecuting child and sexual abuse cases, said investigators found more than just downloaded material in that account.
"Ultimately, when they get into the Dropbox account, they discover not only is there known child sexually abusive material downloaded from the internet in this storage account, but there's also genital photos of minor, minor pubescent children being stored in the same folders, same Dropbox account," Champine said.
Parents of patients have been pressing for answers about what happened to those photos.
"That's the biggest question we've had from so many of our clients — one, what happened to these photos, have they been disseminated anywhere. We don't know the answer to that yet," Champine said. “To this date, we don't know who those children are. We don't know if it’s all of the children we have as clients or if it’s some of them.”
One parent who asked to not be named said her child first saw Sack as an infant, when Sack asked to take multiple photos of her child's genitals, saying it was necessary to move forward with the procedure.
Champine said parents reported observing Sack using his phone during examinations.
"Parents saw him using his phone to take photographs. Another parent saw him using the flashlight on his phone during an examination. We don't know if a photograph was taken," Champine said.
Champine also alleges Sack engaged in other inappropriate behavior, including offering to help a child give a urine sample.
"The doctor had offered to go into the bathroom with the kid to do it. Fortunately, that kid's dad put a stop to that. So there were clearly untoward things going on that parents were aware of and that were clearly against hospital policy from everything we were able to gather so far.”
While Sack's criminal charges stem from nearly 1,300 files of child pornography allegedly downloaded from the internet, investigators say they found nearly 28,000 files in total — including medical-related photos and videos "depicting close-up images of children's genitals" — all saved in the same personal Dropbox account, in violation of hospital policy.
"No one who hears this has to take a large logical leap to ask the question: Well, if he's a pediatric urologist taking these intimate photos of his patients for medical purposes, why on earth would he be storing them in his cloud storage account alongside all this child sexually abusive material he's found and downloaded from the internet?" Champine said.
According to court documents, Sack was the chief of pediatric urology at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Toledo. In a statement, the hospital said, "The safety, well-being and privacy of our patients are our top priority, and we have been told by multiple law enforcement agencies that the criminal charges against Dr. Sack were not related to his clinical activity."
Sack's attorney did not respond in time for comment.
Champine said they expect the case to grow as it proceeds.
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