Surgeon gets jail for touching patients

SACRAMENTO, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A former surgeon in Sacramento has been sentenced to almost four years in prison for touching the genital areas of two female patients.

Dr. Scott Takasugi left the courtroom Monday in chains, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Superior Court Judge Steve White said that to Takasugi his patients were not people but objects for him to use. The two women came to Takasugi in 2006 for breast surgery and he not only touched them sexually but in one case took pictures, investigators said.

"The doctor-patient relationship is considerable," White said. "This is one where the victims acceded reluctantly to the doctor's conduct, based upon their judgment that he was doing what was in their interests, even though it didn't seem like it to them. And they only did that because he was their doctor and they trusted him."

Takasugi, the son of a late former state assemblyman, pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual exploitation. Under terms of his plea agreement, he is under a lifetime ban from practicing medicine in California and must register as a sex offender.