Woman says doctor secretly fathered her and then violated her as OB-GYN
Morgan Hellquist is suing Dr. Morris Wortman, a Rochester fertility specialist and her previous OB-GYN.
Morgan Hellquist was at the dinner table when she received the text alerting her that the DNA results were in and had been forwarded to her in an email. There was no emoji with the text — no smiley face, no frown — to forewarn her of what was to come.
She went to another room to read the email, hoping that her fears were unfounded, simply too aberrant to be real. She opened the email, and there was the confirmation she'd dreaded: According to genetic tests, the man who had been her obstetrician-gynecologist for nearly a decade was her biological father. It was as if she had been incestuously violated for years.
Morgan Hellquist screamed. She struggled for breath. She screamed again.
***
Parents 'worshipped' doctor that helped them conceive
Morgan Hellquist's late father, Gary Levey, was a doting dad, and his love for Hellquist's mother, Jo Ann Levey, was a made-for-TV romance. They were high school sweethearts, but a drunken driver nearly brought an end to his life.
He was only 20 when, while riding a motorcycle, he was hit by the drunken driver. The injuries were severe; he was rendered a paraplegic and utilized a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
The crash did not end the love affair, however, and he and Jo Ann married. They hoped to have a child but were unable to do so.
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In 1983, they turned to Dr. Morris Wortman, a well-known fertility specialist in the Rochester region. Wortman decided that the best course of action was artificial insemination. The couple agreed, asking that any donor not be heavily of a single ethnic group because their family was a mix of multiple European ethnicities.
Between 1983 and 1985, Wortman treated Hellquist's mother. According to Hellquist, the family was told the donor was a University of Rochester medical student. In 1985, Morgan Hellquist was born.
Thereafter, Wortman was a heroic figure in the household. Hellquist's mother revered Wortman. She and her husband told Hellquist when she was 8 years old that she was donor-conceived.
When Hellquist was a teenager, Wortman would occasionally be on television, interviewed because — as also an abortion provider — his practice was often a target of anti-abortion protests. "He was all over the news when I was in my late teens," Hellquist said in a recent interview. "My mom would stop cooking dinner and say, 'There he is.' "
It was also during her teenage years when Hellquist learned more about genetics and DNA while in her biology class. She asked her mother about the donor, and, according to Hellquist, her mother reached out to Wortman's office for more specifics. She was told the office no longer had the records from the time when Hellquist was conceived.
Hellquist married in 2008 and had two children, born in 2009 and 2011. Before and after the births, she suffered from gynecological issues that her regular OB-GYN seemed unable to resolve. She decided in 2012 to turn to the man whom her mother worshipped — Wortman.
DNA tests reveal 'fertility fraud' case: When your biological father is your mother's fertility doctor
Records from her very first visit to Wortman show that his practice, the Center for Menstrual Disorders and Reproductive Choices, clearly made the link with Hellquist and Wortman's fertility practice from more than two decades before. The records note that "her mother was previously a fertility patient" of Wortman's.
'You're never going to believe me'
***
Emotionally devastated, Morgan Hellquist did not want to be around her two young children as she struggled with what she had just learned. She immediately went to her car, planning to drive the two-and-a-half miles to a nearby friend in Geneseo, New York.
Her mind was far from the road. She'd barely made it more than a mile before she was pulled over by a police officer for driving erratically. He saw how distraught she was, and asked what was wrong. Tearfully, she tried to explain to him what she'd just learned.
"Even if I tell you what's wrong, you're never going to believe me," she said,
She told him he likely would think she's crazy. Overwrought, she said her gynecologist was her biological father.
How could the police officer ever believe this, a story even too demented for a dark and unlikely soap opera? How could anyone believe this?
Most of all, Morgan Hellquist did not want to believe it. The genetic tests told her she had no choice.
***
Discovering more half-siblings through genetic testing
As an adult, Hellquist had continued to wonder about her biological father, but she had no plans to pursue information while her father was alive.
In 2015, Hellquist's father was stricken by renal failure and died. A year later, Hellquist purchased a genetic test to see whether she could perhaps pinpoint the medical school donor from her conception. The test came back with a surprise; she was 50% Ashkenazi Jewish, a finding that ran counter to her family's belief that the donor was a mix of ethnicities.
Meanwhile, Wortman continued as her OB-GYN, performing pelvis and breast exams and transvaginal ultrasounds.
In 2017, Hellquist learned, through the genetic tests, of two half-brothers who were also 50% Ashkenazi Jewish. She would eventually learn of six half-siblings, and informed the Center for Menstrual Disorders of her discoveries. There were also oddities; some of the half-brothers bore resemblances to Wortman.
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Still, they too thought their biological father had been a medical student, and the time frame for conception seemed to make sense. The half-siblings had been born within two years of each other.
"We continued to believe this narrative of this being a medical student because we were all about the same age," Hellquist said. "It seemed to be really logical."
As well, the half-siblings in 2020 found a genetic link with a physician who had been a University of Rochester medical student. He was also Jewish. "We believed then that this was the family tree we were barking up," Hellquist said.
Consoled by police officer after horrifying news
***
To this day, Morgan Hellquist cannot believe she was not arrested by the Geneseo officer who pulled her over.
Instead, he consoled her, and helped calm her. "He was really lovely when I didn't know what to say," she remembered.
She was not ticketed, and she told the officer she only had a short distance to reach her friend's home.
He followed her the final mile to the house, ensuring she was driving safely. It was a small moment, but a moment of humanity in an evening that, otherwise, had been ruthlessly traumatic.
***
Morris Wortman linked as father by genetic testing
In 2021, some of Hellquist's half-siblings became more curious of their conception, questioning whether their parents had been told the truth about the sperm donors with their conceptions.
Though aware of the questions of her half-siblings, Hellquist was hesitant to think that Wortman could be her biological father. Her relationship with Wortman went beyond those of her half-siblings; he had seen her in the most intimate ways a physician could.
"My brothers had some questions from their own appearances," she said. "... I had this relationship (with Wortman). I thought, 'If I think my gynecologist is my father, I'm a lunatic.' Who thinks those kinds of things."
Meanwhile, a New York Times reporter was also digging into the world of what is now commonly called "fertility fraud," instances in which individuals have been lied to about the circumstances of their fertility treatment and conception. The reporter, looking into possible cases in the Rochester area, connected with one of Hellquist's half-siblings.
That conversation prompted Hellquist's half-brother to reach out to Wortman's biological daughter from an earlier marriage. Wortman's daughter agreed to provide a genetic sample for comparison.
In April 2021, Hellquist, suffering with severe migraines and continuing menstrual problems, again visited Wortman. The genetic test results from his daughter and Hellquist's half-brother had yet to be completed. Hellquist still held out hope that there was no way he could be her biological father. It didn't just seem unlikely; it was perversely obscene.
At the session, Hellquist said, Wortman asked her to remove the mask she wore because of COVID-19 protocols. He told her she looked better with it off, Hellquist said.
Wortman commented on an antique business that some in Hellquist's family owned, and then showed her an antique massage tool, asking her what a woman might do with it, Hellquist said.
"He made some inappropriate sexual jokes and said some things that were really uncomfortable," Hellquist said.
As the conversation grew stranger, Hellquist noticed more similarities with Wortman and the half-siblings, with whom she'd been communicating online. Then, according to Hellquist, Wortman made an even stranger remark: "He said, 'You're a really good kid, such a good kid.' "
"I then had a moment (thinking) 'Everything you've been afraid of is real.' "
Hellquist cried on her drive home. A month later results came back comparing the DNA of Hellquist's half-brother and Wortman's biological daughter. There was a 99.99% chance the two were siblings.
Hellquist said she has since reached out to Wortman's daughter, and a genetic comparison also confirmed they are siblings. (The Democrat and Chronicle, a part of the Paste BN Network, attempted to reach Wortman's daughter through her workplace and online messaging but was unsuccessful.)
'I felt like my body was breaking in half'
***
At her friend's home, the pain again overwhelmed.
"I felt the same way I did the day I learned my dad was going to die," she said in the interview, remembering the evening. "It was the only other time I felt like my body was breaking in half."
She'd been battling the belief that she could be the child of Morris Wortman, but the whole scenario seemed too horrific to accept. If someone could be lacking such a moral compass that he would be the OB-GYN to his offspring, what did that say about her?
"You grow up with a certain sense of self-identity," Hellquist said. That identity was shaken, though she held firm to the knowledge that her father — the man who, though not her biological father, was the one who mattered — was a man of strength and character who'd lived a full and loving life despite the severity of his injuries.
"He was always the only dad I needed," she said.
Still, on the evening of the DNA test results, the anguish could not be corralled. She reached her friend's home and the pain burst through again.
"I just sat in the backyard and screamed and cried out to the field behind her house because I felt like it broke something inside that could never be fixed. I felt like I could never go back from that moment."
***
Morris Wortman accused of using own sperm to impregnate women in lawsuit
In September, Morgan Hellquist sued Wortman. The lawsuit laid out what she and her lawyers — Kathryn Lee Bruns and Kristin Merrick of Faraci Lange, LLP — allege is a clear case of medical malpractice.
Richard Tubiolo, an attorney for Wortman, declined to comment and said Wortman would not comment either. Wortman, who is still practicing, also did not return messages left for him.
In legal papers, Wortman has denied many of the allegations, including claims about the inappropriate comments and the allegation that he used his own sperm during the fertility cycle in which Hellquist's mother, Jo Ann Levey, was impregnated. He also denies that he said the donor was a University of Rochester medical student; Wortman is seeking dismissal of Hellquist's lawsuit.
The request for dismissal hinges on multiple responses to Hellquist's lawsuit, including a claim that the allegations could be barred by the statute of limitations.
In New York, the medical malpractice statute of limitations is 2½ years. Hellquist's lawsuit is based on his treatment of her as her OB-GYN, not on the time of the alleged fertility fraud, so her lawyers maintain that the recent treatment is within the time frame.
This past week, Hellquist's lawyers amended the lawsuit, adding a longtime nurse at the practice and Wortman's current wife, who was, according to the lawsuit, the manager at the Center for Menstrual Disorders. Both knew or should have known of the fertility fraud and did nothing to intervene, the legal papers allege.
New York law does not now have statutes allowing for criminal or civil penalties for fertility fraud. But Hellquist's allegations go beyond the claims that Wortman is her biological father. She has the additional emotional strain from the nine years he was her OB-GYN, the lawsuit says.
"A physician owes a duty to his patient," Bruns said. "In this instance, he had a duty to not treat her. He violated his ethical obligation as a physician.
"He never should have treated Morgan. He should have taken whatever steps were necessary to refer her to a different physician out of an abundance of caution."
Her mother has also suffered with the revelations from the genetic testing, Hellquist said.
"My mom feels so violated. Hellquist said. "She said, 'I feel like he raped me.' She feels like all of it is her fault."
After publicity circulated in September about Hellquist's lawsuit — the media coverage was international — another local man, Carl Lore II, came forward and said he, too, had learned Wortman is his biological father and had treated his mother for fertility issues.
He, too, had spoken to individuals now identified as half-siblings, and said he found them all struggling with the information. "Finding this kind of thing out at 35 that your father isn’t your father—it doesn’t make anyone more stable," Lore said in September.
David Seubert, a local lawyer who is also an OB-GYN, is representing Lore and said that Lore also found a sibling match, through ancestry.com, with Wortman's daughter from Wortman's earlier marriage.
Fighting to make fertility fraud a crime
The advent of genetic testing businesses, such as ancestry.com and 23andme.com, has given rise to cases of fertility fraud across the country.
"There's just an inordinate amount of fraud that continues to occur," said Kara Rubinstein Deyerin, the chief executive officer of Right to Know, a nonprofit that pushes for strengthened fertility fraud laws. "We're making humans and we should get it right."
Hellquist said she recognizes her case is different, because of the physician connection with Wortman.
"I'm somehow teetering on this one blade of grass that allows me in this freak scenario to hold this man accountable," she said.
As well as medical malpractice, Wortman is accused of non-consensual touching and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Now, Hellquist said, she finds herself torn, pulled between the memories of the kind and caring father she lost seven years ago to renal failure, and the discovery of her biological father.
"My dad was such a great man," Hellquist said. "I got a lot from him.
"I wrestle with what it's like to be the genetic offspring of someone who doesn't have a conscience."
For now, she said, she will continue to work hand-in-hand with New York lawmakers to create statutes tackling fertility fraud.
"There are no civil or criminal ramifications for something that seems so blatantly abhorrent," she said. "It blew my mind that there was no legislation, period."
Contributing: Adria R. Walker
Follow Gary Craig on Twitter: gcraig1.