The report card for each state contains the scores it received when we evaluated it for how well it protects patients against sexually abusive doctors. The overall rating is the average of the score the state received in each category. In states with two medical boards, one for osteopathic physicians and the other for medical doctors, the overall rating is based on an average of each board’s scores.
Click on the boxes below to read how Delaware did on each category — and how we calculated the score for the categories.
State rating (out of 100)
Delaware licensed Villabona, a psychiatrist, even though in 2002 he had pleaded guilty in Maryland to two criminal charges involving sex offenses on a female minor in cases that dated back to 1978 and 1983. He had been indicted on 30 counts, including rape. His sentence in Maryland was five years’ probation before judgment.
The Delaware medical board in 2003 placed restrictions on his license, but a court stayed that order, court documents show. The court released him early from probation in 2005. The board, which also shortened his probation, said Villabona could only practice on patients 18 and older unless he had an adult chaperone and told patients of the Maryland guilty plea.
In 2007, the board extended his probation because it found he had violated the chaperone provision. Then in 2008, the board said it had a complaint from 2006 that he’d had "consensual" sex with a patient, a 22-year-old who was described as a victim of child sex abuse that Villabona was treating for depression. The board then restricted the doctor to seeing only adult male patients..
Villabona has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Anonymous complaints are prohibited by law. However, the board said it may keep the name of the complainant confidential in some cases.
“Beyond the feelings of betrayal, embarrassment, humiliation and anxiety readily associated with this sort of misconduct by a health care provider, Plaintiff feels anger and remorse because she did not physically retaliate when Defendant put his hand on her."
— Court document in a lawsuit against a doctor who had been convicted of rape and attempted rape of two female patients in a pain clinic. His license was revoked in 2001.
In 2010 Gov. Jack Markell signed legislation allowing victims who have been sexually abused by a healthcare provider to file suit at any time after the abuse took place.
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