Eileen+O’Neill

I am using the  Grand Jury Report on the crimes of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell as the basis of this Wiki. I will add material to support my contention that though Gosnell is beyond the pale, this is mainly in the way he combined and refined aspects of the ghoulish and callous disregard for humanity often seen in abortionists. He was hardly a pioneer.

In order to distinguish between my own writings, and those of the Grand Jury, I will use a different font that makes the Grand Jury Report appear to be typed.

 Eileen O’Neill testified that she graduated in 1995 from a medical school in Texas. She described an odd course of residency in which she seemingly worked simultaneously in Texas and at a Louisiana abortion clinic and then spent a month at Gosnell’s clinic, where she said she “just stood around and did nothing pretty much.”

 Louisiana Board of Medicine records show that O’Neill was licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana from 1996 to 2000 (she testified, incorrectly, that she was licensed from 1995 to 1998). She testified that she worked at the Delta abortion clinic in Baton Rouge from 1998 to 2000, even though she also testified that she moved to Texas in 1998. She said that she worked at the Louisiana abortion clinic as a “side job.”

 During that same time period, in 1998 or 1999, she said she was licensed to practice in Texas, but obtained “special dispensation” to finish her residency at Reading Hospital in Pennsylvania. She spent one month of her residency at Gosnell’s clinic. O’Neill briefly held a “graduate medical training license” in Pennsylvania, but let it expire in 2001. After her residency stints, she never held a medical license in Pennsylvania. (She asserted that she has a license application pending now.)

 O’Neill relinquished her Louisiana medical license in 2000 – she claimed because of “post traumatic stress syndrome” – and has not been licensed to practice medicine in any capacity since 2001. Despite being fully aware that she was not licensed, Gosnell hired her to work at his clinic in 2002. O’Neill testified that she met Gosnell through Leroy Brinkley, the owner of both the Baton Rouge abortion clinic and Atlantic Women’s Services, the Delaware abortion clinic where Gosnell worked one day a week.

 In her testimony, O’Neill tried to minimize her hours, her pay, and her responsibilities at Gosnell’s clinic. She said that she commuted from Phoenixville to work four hours a night (8:00 p.m. to midnight), three nights a week (Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays). She testified, under oath, that she was really a volunteer, and that Gosnell just provided her with gas money. She testified:

>>  A: He gave me travel money every now and then, just whenever he had cash. He always said he never had any money. >>  Q: So how much did you make? >>  A: For 15 hours a week, sometimes he give me 200 every couple of weeks and sometimes 200 a month. Sometimes 400 every two months.

 Gosnell, she said, paid her in cash.

 O’Neill acknowledged that she saw patients and that they called her Dr. O’Neill. But she claimed that her responsibilities were mainly paperwork, tasks such as composing hardship letters, doing referrals, and filling out forms for disability and family medical leave. She insisted that she saw patients only when Gosnell was at the clinic, a claim refuted by her co-workers and disproved by her own files. Steve Massof testified that every day she worked, O’Neill saw patients before Gosnell arrived for the night.

 And Kareema Cross confirmed that O’Neill was regularly at the clinic before Gosnell came in. O’Neill tried to assert that she did not treat patients, based on a fiction that the doctor was always there supervising her. But her own testimony belied this sham:

>>  Q: What do you mean that you didn’t treat patients? >>  A: Well, I never decide what the treatment is. That’s up to him. >>  Q: What would you do – >> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> A: Because I’m there with him all night. So I can talk to him about patients. >> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Q: Okay. So your testimony is that he was with – that every time you saw patients, where was he, the doctor? >> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> A: Well, it depends, he would be in and out sometimes. I mean the deal was, he was supposed to be seeing them with me, but I’m sure there’s times when he didn’t. Sometimes he just stuck his head in, you know.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Later, she qualified her claim further:

>> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Q: … you’re saying all the services that you provided to the patient was in the company of Dr. Gosnell. >> <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> A: No. I didn’t say that. I said I would like it to be. He was always on the premises. Sometimes he’d just poke his head in. Whatever he tells me to do, I would do.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Massof testified that O’Neill worked alone and unsupervised, that she treated patients, and that she prescribed drugs. Latosha Lewis described O’Neill as “basically the doctor that saw family practice patients.” Files found at the clinic show O’Neill signing post-procedure pelvic exams as the “clinician.” Gosnell introduced O’Neill to an evaluator from the National Abortion Federation (NAF), an association of abortion providers, as the doctor who performed the first-trimester medical abortions (performed with pills, not surgery) – and O’Neill confirmed to the NAF evaluator that she did treat these patients.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Gosnell also introduced O’Neill to another one-time clinic worker, Randy Hutchins, as a physician. Hutchins believed O’Neill was a licensed doctor because he saw her treat patients at the clinic. Hutchins personally knew one of the patients – Della Mann, a registered nurse who had worked at the clinic years earlier (and, again, for four days in December 2009, when the NAF evaluator was present).

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Mann told the Grand Jury that she had been a “patient” of O’Neill’s for several years and a patient of Gosnell’s for over 20 years before O’Neill joined his practice. She explained that she started seeing O’Neill when she arrived for an appointment with Gosnell one night and was told by the person at the front desk that she would be seen by “Dr. O’Neill” instead. Mann testified that for approximately seven years, until 2009, she saw “Dr. O’Neill” for “each and every one of my visits.” She said that she saw Gosnell only four or five times during that period. Mann listed a number of conditions for which she had seen O’Neill. O’Neill had diagnosed her conditions, prescribed medication, and signed her charts. Mann could not say whose signature was on the prescriptions, but she saw O’Neill write them.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Mann never saw or talked to Gosnell about these conditions. He did not pop his head in, and he did not consult with O’Neill. As far as Mann knew, O’Neill was her doctor. And she always assumed that O’Neill was licensed. She certainly never suspected that Gosnell allowed her to be treated by a “volunteer” at his clinic. Mann told the Grand Jurors: “If I knew that she was not licensed, I wouldn’t have let her touch me.”

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Mann did eventually stop seeing O’Neill, but it was not because she was not licensed. Mann said that in 2008, she decided to stop going to Gosnell’s office because of its reckless handling of patient files. She said that the files were left all over the place and that anyone, including other patients, could have access to them.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> O’Neill was in the clinic on February 18, 2010, when law enforcement conducted the raid. She fled, however, before being interviewed – even though she had been told not to leave.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's office listed the following charges against <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">O'Neill:
 * Theft by Deception (9 counts), 18 Pa.C.S. § 3922, M-1
 * Conspiracy (Theft by Deception), 18 Pa.C.S. § 903, M-1
 * Corrupt Organizations, Racketeering, 18 Pa.C.S. § 911(b), F-1
 * Corrupt Organization, Conspiracy, 18 Pa.C.S. § 911(b)(4), F-1
 * Perjury, 18 Pa.C.S. §, 4902, F-3
 * False Swearing, 18 Pa.C.S. § 4903, M-2