Deborrah Norris says she had to be strong because the other women couldn't be.
In 1987, the year that she reported being sexually assaulted by Dr. Robert Davis, she learned of four other women who said they had also been assaulted by him and who had reported Davis to the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing. Several of them also reported Davis to the police. One woman, a patient, filed a civil suit against Davis, accusing him of raping her. That suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.But as Davis continued to practice medicine, for six more years, the other women - frustrated and fearful of retaliation - gave up.
Norris doesn't fault them for deciding to try to put the experience behind them. "One of them was suicidal," she said.
And now that her civil suit has been settled, and she is no longer restrained from talking to reporters, she said she wishes state officials could understand how many other people were affected - not just the women who said they were assaulted by Davis, but also the people who sought medical care from his Family Medical Center in West Jordan - during the years the state investigated him.
A woman whose initials are M.J. said she spent several years being terrified of Davis.
M.J., a medical salesperson, visited Davis' office in 1987. He took an interest in her products and promised to buy a large order. Excited at the prospects of a good commission, M.J. agreed to meet him for a drink after work to celebrate the deal. She now believes he drugged her drink.
During the course of the conversation, he never did commit to buying anything from her, but as she stood to leave, he expressed an interest in dropping by her apartment to see her dogs. She demurred. He convinced her by saying he would only stay a minute, as he had a meeting at 7 p.m, she said.
About the time she let him in her apartment, she said, she noticed she was feeling woozy. She said she told him no. She said she tried to fight him off when he grabbed her, but she was strangely weak.
A friend stopped by later that evening, found M.J. hysterical and vomiting, and took her to the Rape Crisis Center.
M.J. called the licensing division the following Monday to ask if Davis was practising medicine without a license. Because he was so unprofessional, M.J. had come to believe must have been only posing as an M.D.
She was asked to come in and make a complaint. As she talked to a licensing official, telling the investigator that he had asked her to say obscene words while he was raping her, the investigator said something to the effect that, "Yes, that's what he said to the other women, too."
For the first time, M.J. knew she was not alone. She decided right then to try to keep other women from becoming Davis' victims. She went to the police and she called the Deseret News.
When prosecutors declined her case, M.J. filed a civil suit. As he did with Norris, Davis' attorney asked that the case be sealed and filed a countersuit, accusing her of maliciously prosecuting Davis. M.J. could no longer talk to reporters.
She called the Deseret News again in October 1988 to say she was dropping the civil suit. She was afraid.
She'd moved from the apartment in which she was raped, she said. But she was still so terrified of being alone that she avoided being at home. She was neglecting her dogs, she said. She couldn't concentrate on work. She was going to quit her job and move back East to live with her family.
Later, she said she regretted dropping the civil suit. "But I was so stressed. I didn't feel intimidated by his lawyer. I felt very afraid of him and who he might send after me.
"Nothing was worth it. No one was helping me. I thought, `This guy is getting away with it. If they want to wait until he murders someone, fine. I'm not going to feel guilty about it.' "
If she is able to collect any money from Robert Davis, Norris says she wants to set up a foundation for women who have been raped and who have been told by prosecutors their cases are too difficult to prove in criminal court. "I want to make a fund available so these women can hire an attorney to take their cases to civil court."
A federal jury convicted Davis on 32 counts of mail fraud because of inflated and inaccurate bills Davis sent to Medicaid, private insurance companies and patients. A federal judge sentenced Davis to 56 months in a minimum security federal prison for the crimes. Davis began serving that sentence in October.