More women to testify in dentist's molestation trial

A California dentist will face more than a dozen accusers in the second week of his sexual battery trial, according to news reports.

Mark Anderson, D.D.S., of Woodland, CA, is charged with 21 counts of sexual battery on 14 patients. Between February 2005 and August 2007, he allegedly molested the women, who claim he touched their breasts under the guise of performing a medical procedure.

Following his arrest, which was prompted by one patient's police report, 26 other women eventually came forward with similar claims. Dr. Anderson also faces five civil lawsuits by alleged victims, and his dental license has been suspended, the Woodland Daily Democrat reported.

In testimony last week, three of the alleged victims described how Dr. Anderson stimulated muscles in their jaw areas down to their breasts during dental exams, even sliding his hand underneath their bras, according to the Daily Democrat.

Dr. Anderson's attorney, Michael Rothschild, is arguing that Dr. Anderson did not touch the women for "sexual arousal, gratification, or abuse" but to relieve pain associated with temporomandibular disorder by pressing "trigger points" in the patients' pectoral muscles. Rothschild reportedly plans to bring in some of the dentist's male patients to testify they underwent the same treatment.

An expert witness, Gregory Goddard, a retired professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry, has testified that, while there is no reason for a dentist to touch a patient below the neck, some dentists believe the pectoral muscles are linked to facial pain, the Daily Democrat reported.