An undercover Los Angeles Police Department officer testified this week that she was assaulted by Dr. Kevin Brown, a prominent South Los Angeles doctor facing charges of sexually assaulting dozens of female patients, including a 15-year-old.
The officer, outfitted with surveillance equipment, visited Brown's Crenshaw Boulevard office in June 2008 posing as a patient.
In an audio recording played back in court, Officer Stacey Young and Brown can be heard talking about her chronic ankle injury, a condition Young said she developed after years of playing tennis.
Young said that when Brown finished examining her ankle, she thought the doctor "did a great job" and that the exam seemed "very normal."
As she prepared to leave, however, she said Brown conducted another exam to check her ears and throat.
That's when the doctor suddenly lifted her shirt and bra, and held her left breast in her hand, she testified.
"It was extremely quick," she said, adding that she immediately pushed him off and he tried to apologize.
After she left the office, Young could be heard in the audio recording telling other officers by phone, and later in person, about the incident.
Her testimony followed the testimony of other women who claim they had been assaulted or inappropriately touched by Brown when they came to him for treatment.
The trial began last week for the physician, the son of the former premier of Bermuda. He was known for organizing charity fundraisers at the Playboy Mansion.
Prosecutors say Brown, 40, assaulted almost a dozen female patients, including the undercover officer. Brown allegedly molested the patients under the guise of unnecessary breast and pelvic exams over a two-year period, beginning in 2003.
His 2008 arrest came after several women contacted authorities and accused Brown of sexually battering or raping them during those examinations, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Marie Wise said.
Brown has pleaded not guilty to 33 felony sex charges and could face life in prison if convicted on all counts.
The state is also investigating Brown in "multiple healthcare fraud schemes and over prescription of Oxycodone," according to court documents. He has not been charged in connection with that inquiry.
At the time of his arrest, Brown was free on bail for a previous sexual assault arrest.
Brown once operated the now-defunct Urban Health Institute of Los Angeles. The charity, which was run out of the same building as Brown's practice, sought to provide disaster relief in the United States, South America and throughout Africa.
Founded by Brown, the institute had held fundraisers at the Playboy mansion that featured celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian, Don Cheadle, Shannon Elizabeth and Hugh Hefner.
The officer's testimony will resume Wednesday morning.
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-- Ricardo Lopez
Photo: Dr. Kevin Brown, left, with his attorney, Blair Berk, at a hearing in Los Angeles in 2008. Credit: Nick Ut / Associated Press
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