A prominent New York fertility doctor accused of secretly impregnating his patients was killed in a horrific accident, suffering an unimaginable death.
According to a lawsuit, a prominent fertility specialist in New York became a “serial sperm donor,” surreptitiously fathering a daughter with an unknowing patient and giving the child at least nine half-siblings. In her lawsuit, 35-year-old Morgan Hellquist claims that she only discovered she was the daughter of married 70-year-old Dr. Morris Wortman of Rochester, thanks partly to over-the-counter DNA testing.
“[Wortman] committed a gross, wanton, and willful fraud against Plaintiff so outrageous in character as to violate all bounds of decency, and which involves high moral culpability, rises to a level of wanton dishonesty, and shocks the conscience,” the plaintiff fumes in her suit. According to court records, Hellquist claims that her mother interacted with Wortman between 1983 and 1985 when seeking fertility treatments.
The plaintiff states in her lawsuit that the man she grew up calling dad became a paraplegic when a drunk driver struck his motorcycle at the age of 20, making it impossible for him to have children. According to the lawsuit, Wortman’s clinics provided sperm injections to Hellquist’s mother two or three times a month.
According to the documents, the woman was informed that the sperm originated from “a University of Rochester Medical Center medical student who was willing to donate his live sperm to help [her and her husband] to conceive.” To better blend with Hellquist’s parents, the donor “was not to have any known physical or mental conditions that he could pass on to a child and was not to be of predominantly Italian or Jewish ancestry,” according to the lawsuit.
The accusations against Dr. Morris Wortman get worse.
According to the documents, Wortman’s then-wife gave birth to Wortman’s daughter a few weeks before Morgan Hellquist was born in September 1985. The documents state that Hellquist then got married, had multiple children, and experienced irregular menstrual bleeding. Consequently, between 2012 and 2021, she sought medical attention from Wortman, not knowing he was her biological father.
Wortman conducted her vaginal and breast exams even though, according to the documents, he was aware that he was her biological father for at least some of that period. About a year after her father passed away in 2016, Hellquist learned she was half Ashkenazi Jewish using a generic genetic testing service.
The lawsuit alleges that Hellquist discovered she had six half-siblings after several years of testing. She became suspicious of Wortman, who is “100% Ashkenazi Jewish,” the papers indicate. Hellquist and one of her half-brothers convinced Wortman’s daughter from his first marriage to undergo DNA testing the next month, and the plaintiff learned they were all Wortman’s biological children, the suit claims.
Wortman had three children from his marriages, which means Hellquist had nine half-siblings, “with likely more to be discovered,” according to her lawsuit. Making the bad situation worse is the fact that Wortman, his mother, and a brother have all been treated for mental illness, the suit says. Ashkenazi descendants also carry a higher risk of certain medical conditions, such as cancer.
Karma seemingly came calling for Dr. Morris Wortman.
When Dr. Morris Wortman was flying in an experimental, hand-made airplane, karma seemingly came calling. The aircraft fell apart mid-air over an upstate county, and he was dead. According to the authorities, Wortman, who was 72 years old at the time, was a passenger in the plane when it crashed in a pasture in Orleans County, resulting in the deaths of both him and the pilot, Earl Luce Jr.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground, landing in an orchard,” Orleans County Sheriff Christopher Bourke said. “The fuselage of the aircraft continued west approximately 1,000 to 1,500 yards before crashing into a pasture behind a residence,” the sheriff said.
In order to initiate an investigation, staff members from the National Transportation Safety Board were sent to the location where the incident occurred. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the aircraft in question was a Wittman W-5 Buttercup. Luce, who was 70 years old, gushed about the aircraft on the internet and discussed the process of hand-constructing the replica aircraft.
Unfortunately, Dr. Morris Wortman died before ever facing his alleged victims in a court of law. Wrongful impregnation, whether it’s an unauthorized sperm donor or rape, should definitely count as sexual misconduct at the least and assault at most. Not only did Wortman allegedly betray and abuse the doctor’s oath, but his daughter’s trust in doctors and people in general. I hope his alleged victims are able to find closure and move on with their lives.
