County officials in South Bend, Indiana raided an abortion clinic today as part of an investigation into an Indiana-based abortion practitioner who failed to properly report cases of child rape. The Indiana Medical Licensing Board, in January, called on the Indiana Attorney General’s office to investigate allegations that Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, operator of three Indiana abortion clinics.
Klopfer failed to report a statutory rape as required by Indiana law but the state medical board ruled that Klopfer’s license will remain active during the investigation.
The South Bend Tribune newspaper reported yesterday that the raid took place.
Detectives from the St. Joseph County Special Victims unit served a search warrant Wednesday at the South Bend clinic where Dr. Ulrich “George” Klopfer provides abortions and other services, the county prosecutor’s office confirmed.
Detectives took files and other paperwork from Klopfer’s office at the Women’s Pavilion on Ironwood Drive, prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Jessica McBrier confirmed. They returned the original paperwork on Thursday after they made copies for investigation records.
McBrier said the search warrant was served as part of an ongoing investigation into Klopfer based on complaints and accompanying paperwork from St. Joseph County Right To Life Program Director Jeanette Burdell.
The complaints include documentation of delayed reporting of an abortion performed on a 13-year-old girl in 2013 and alleged errors and omissions in terminated pregnancy reports filed with the Indiana State Department of Health, among other things, said Burdell.
Klopfer has been criminally charged with failing to file a timely report about a statutory rape, a Class B Misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The charge is related to an incident of statutory rape on a 13-year-old girl. Klopfer, who gave the girl an abortion at his Gary, Indiana, abortion clinic in September, 2012, filed the report nearly four months later than state statute requires, leaving the girl at risk of further sexual abuse. Klopfer called the failures an “honest mistake.”
Klopfer stopped doing abortions while the investigation continues.
Klopfer is the subject of thousands of consumer complaints filed in late 2013 with the Indiana Attorney General’s Consumer Complaint Division over errors and omissions found on required Terminated Pregnancy Reports filed with the Indiana State Department of Health. In December, Klopfer ceased abortions at his Fort Wayne abortion clinic after a physician who had been providing local back-up as required in Allen County terminated that relationship.
The non-reporting of the young girl’s abortion was discovered by Lake County Right to Life after reviewing Terminated Pregnancy Reports obtained through an open records act request. Abortionists in Indiana are required the reports within 10 days of abortion procedures.
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“We hope this is the first criminal charge of many that Klopfer will ultimately face,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, which reported earlier this week that Klopfer has been placed under investigation by the Special Victim’s Unit of St. Joseph County. “We commend of Indiana Right to Life and its affiliates for their stellar work in uncovering these abortion abuses and getting the information into the hands of prosecutors and oversight agencies so Klopfer can be brought to justice.”
Meanwhile, women have now filed more than 1,200 complaints against him. The complaints are the result of 1,494 errors and omissions made by Klopfer between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2013 on terminated pregnancy reports that doctors are required by Indiana law to file for every abortion they perform. These complaints more than double the number of complaints currently pending against Klopfer.
