CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A doctor—who put his medical license on inactive status in 2016–was named in a 7-count criminal indictment Friday handed up by a Kanawha County grand jury.
Dr. Steven Matulis allegedly sexually assaulted or abused five women while he was examining them at Charleston Area Medical Center, according to Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia, the special prosecutor in the case.
Matulis, a gastrointerologist, has been under investigation since early 2016 by Charleston police. Sorsaia said it’s a complex case.
“We wanted to make sure that we thoroughly reviewed all of the aspects of the case. So when we did go to grand jury we had an opportunity to give a fair presentation of the evidence,” Sorsaia told MetroNews Friday evening.
More than a dozen civil lawsuits filed in recent years by former Matulis patients claiming he sexually assaulted them while they were under anesthesia for medical procedures.
Sorsaia wouldn’t comment on the allegations made in the civil lawsuits but said because the allegations were in a medical setting a whole other set of issues have to be considered.
“From a factual standpoint of what he did or didn’t do but also in terms of the practice of medicine and what’s appropriate in a procedure and what is not,” Sorsaia said.
Matulis is expected to be arraigned on the charges by a Kanawha County circuit judge in the near future.