For those who suspect that psychiatrists are at least as crazy as the rest of us, the sexual harassment trial that went to a jury Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court has provided no end of material.
Jurors listened to two weeks of testimony, including psychiatrists testifying about their sex lives under code names and accounts of them allegedly attending porn parties and having oral sex in cars. Now the jury must decide who is telling the truth.
Dr. David Martorano, a handsome Columbia University-educated physician and a former psychiatric resident at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, alleges that he had an affair with his supervisor and that after he broke it off and rumors of it began to circulate, he lost a coveted post as chief resident, and his reputation was ruined. He sued the supervisor, Dr. Heather Krell, and UCLA.
Krell says there was no affair. Her lawyer accused Martorano of making the whole thing up to seduce yet another psychiatrist. Krell countersued Martorano for slander and invasion of privacy. The jury will consider both claims at the same time.
UCLA's lawyer, meanwhile, said it didn't matter from a legal perspective whether Martorano and Krell had an affair -- university administrators acted properly when they revoked the offer for Martorano to become chief resident after rumors began to fly because it was unacceptable for there to be even the perception that he was getting a job based on a sexual affair at the institute, one of the top facilities of its kind in the country.
Testimony was so explicit that Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin allowed several women to testify under code names, a decision she acknowledged was unusual but necessary to protect their reputations.
At times, the witness box seemed more like a psychoanalytic couch -- and not just because witnesses often faced not only a judge, jury and lawyers but also at least two psychiatrists.
Testimony and court papers included Martorano's depiction of himself zipping around Malibu on dates in a two-seater, as well as an internal UCLA report that said that people who worked with him said he "frequently spent his downtime ... talking about his sexual conduct." Jurors also heard his personal psychiatrist's assessment that he was "addicted" to having women fall in love with him.
Narcissistic traits
