East Lansing doctor pleads no contest to sexually assaulting patient
Kara Berg
LANSING — An East Lansing doctor has pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a patient as he treated her.
Kenneth Onuoha, 57, was a physician at Family Care Practice in East Lansing when a female patient said he momentarily ran a massager over her vagina while he was massaging her buttocks, according to court records.
The woman was fully clothed at the time and said she initially brushed it off as accidental, according to records. But it happened at subsequent appointments.
She was seeing Onuoha for costochondritis treatment in 2015 and 2016 because her ribs kept dislocating, according to records.
Before bringing out the massager, he said her pelvis needed to be adjusted. He told her to lay on her stomach and pulled her pants and underwear down, according to records.
Onuoha was initially charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of attempted criminal sexual conduct. All three of those charges were dismissed when Onuoha pleaded no contest to fourth-degree sexual assault.
Chris Bergstrom, Onuoha's attorney, did not respond for comment Friday.
When this complaint was made in 2018, East Lansing police pulled out another complaint made about Ohuoha in 2015. That woman told police Onuoha put both hands under her bra and rubbed her bare breasts, according to court records. She also told police he asked her to unbutton her jeans, slipped his hand in and rubbed it on her genitals.
Onuoha's physician license was suspended after a 2017 investigation found that he performed an "aggressive" breast cancer check on a patient and abruptly pulled down her pants and underwear during an appointment for a low-back injury, according to the suspension notice from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
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The patient told investigators she reported it to the office manager and refused to return to Onuoha for additional treatment.
Onuoha's office manager, medical assistant, receptionist and another physician sat down with him after the report to speak to him about other complaints, including that woman's.
Onuoha acknowledge to LARA that he could have communicated his intentions better when he was examining the patient. Moving forward, he said he'd have a female staffer present when he's examining female patients.
Onuoha is set to be sentenced April 6.
Contact reporter Kara Berg at 517-377-1113 or kberg@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @karaberg95.