A Lubbock anesthesiologist faces up to a year in jail after a jury found he inappropriately touched an employee last year during a medical assessment.
A jury of four women and two men in Lubbock County Court at Law #1 deliberated for about three hours Wednesday evening before returning with a verdict finding 70-year-old Dr. Jeffrey Colvin guilty of a class A misdemeanor count of indecent assault.
A punishment hearing before Judge Mark Hocker will be set next month, court officials said.
Colvin is also eligible for probation.
Jeffrey Colvin
The verdict came after a two-day trial during which jurors heard evidence that Colvin’s medical examination of an employee went beyond what she consented to.
Jurors heard from the woman who was also Colvin’s employee. She told jurors that Colvin, who has been practicing medicine for 36 years, planned expand his pain management practice to begin offering fat transfer procedures. She told jurors he had been hounding employees, including her, to get those procedures as a way to promote them to their patients.
The Lubbock County Courthouse.
“If he could get us to get the procedures, the patients can see what he did to us and the patients will be more likely to get them,” she told jurors.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal does not identify victims of sexual abuse.
She said Colvin had been pestering her for months to allow him an examination to see what procedures she could get.
The woman said she did not want to have a procedure but eventually relented to an assessment for breast augmentation to appease Colvin.
“I didn’t want to have the procedure, but he was my boss,” she told jurors. “It was (a matter of) I am I going to be reprimanded? Am I going to be treated differently if I don’t do it?”
She said on Sept. 1, 2023, while most of her co-workers were out to lunch, Colvin entered her office to assess her fat reserves for a potential breast augmentation surgery.
She said she agreed to be assessed in her office instead of an examination room and without a chaperone, against standard practice.
“I never expected anything like this or I would make sure even if I would remotely thought this would happen,” she said.
She told jurors that working at Colvin’s practice “felt kind of like we were a small family. I was in disbelief that this would actually happen to me, nor could I believe that it came from Dr. Colvin.
“He was a great teacher,” she said. “I learned a lot (from him), so I think we had a good relationship.”
She told jurors the examination involved Colvin touching her breasts, abdomen and thighs, to which she gave consent.
She said after assessing the fat on her inner thighs, Colvin asked if he could examine her genitals to see if she would benefit from labial augmentation.
She told jurors that she consented to the examination of her genitals.
Colvin determined she didn’t need the procedure.
At that point she believed the examination was complete, she told jurors.
However, she said Colvin’s hands remained on her genitals and he began rubbing her, instead of palpating.
She said he asked her if his touch felt good.
She said she froze as her mind raced through a million ideas about how to get out of the situation rushed through her head.
“I had obviously never in a million years thought he would do something like that to anyone, especially not his employees,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything rational to get away.”
The woman, who’s husband is in law enforcement, said she blurted out, “it could — with the right person at the right time.”
Then, she said, Colvin asked what he could do to make it better adding, “what if I used my tongue?”
That’s when she said she got up, walked around her desk to put it between her and Colvin, face a wall and dressed.
She said Colvin left her office, but returned a few minutes later to ask if she was going to tell her husband about what happened.
She told jurors that she immediately called her one of her professors for advice on how to proceed.
However, she didn’t call the police until three hours later, after speaking to her husband, who she said she deliberately told when he would have been busy picking up their grandchildren from school.
“I knew if I called my husband (immediately), there would probably a murder and we would all be here for my husband’s murder trial,” she said.
The woman said she quit her job that day.
Colvin did not testify at trial, however, jurors heard his interview with Lubbock police officers who responded to the scene that day and heard a statement he provided, that a Lubbock police detective told jurors aligned with the woman’s version of events.
“They both also state that there was a point where the exam was over and it turned sexual,” detective John Greeslin told jurors. “… Both their stories were so in line every step of the way. “
He said he believed Colvin’s continued actions after the exam ended happened with the woman’s consent and with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of any person, which aligned with the statute.
“At this time the examination was complete, but I lingered. and continued to palpate the (genitals) for an additional 20-30 seconds,” Colvin wrote in his statement, adding that he made inappropriate remarks to her.
In his closing argument Colvin’s attorney, Michael King argued that the encounter between his client and the woman was likely an indiscretion between two consenting adults.
“These are two consenting adults who both know what they’re doing is wrong,” he said. “An extra marital affair is not illegal. It’s not against the law. “
He told jurors the testimony they heard from the woman showed she never withdrew her consent and didn’t immediately stop the encounter.
“She didn’t freeze up,” King told jurors. “She said, ‘It would have to be the right person and the right place. That’s not freezing up, that’s being coy.”
A current employee who was called as a defense witness told jurors that she had seen the woman act “unprofessionally” with Colvin and recalled a few episodes she believed the woman was flirting with the doctor.
Another employee, also a defense witness, told jurors that the woman became upset when Colvin altered her contract that reduced her salary.
He told jurors that Colvin immediately stopped touching the former employee when she ended the examination.
Prosecutor Erica Soto told jurors that the evidence showed the woman only consented to be touched by Colvin for the purpose of a medical examination.
Prosecutor Hannah Beetler told jurors in her closing argument that once the exam was over, Colvin knew he no longer had consent to continue touching the woman.
“But Dr. Colvin continued,” she said. “He went from palpating to rubbing, he continued to touch her inappropriately and illegally. “
She said the delay between the woman stopping the examination and walking away from Colvin was understandable given the power dynamics at play in the situation.
“She was trying to figure out how to get out of that situation, how to get out of that indecent assault situation,” she said.
Lubbock police arrested Colvin on Nov. 18, 2023. His bond was filed on Dec. 6, 2023, court records show.
Meanwhile, the Texas Medical Board suspended Colvin’s medical license, determining “his continuation in the practice of medicine poses a continuing threat to public welfare.”
His license remained suspended until March, when he agreed to restrict himself to treating male patients.
It was not immediately clear what impact the conviction would have on his license.
Colvin is also facing a civil suit in the 99th District Court in which she is seeking $1 million in damages, against the former employee.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Lubbock doctor guilty of inappropriately touching employee during exam
