Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
A prosecutor dropped felony rape and sexual assault charges against Philadelphia-area doctor John Smyth <\/a>Michel<\/a> on Tuesday after his accuser failed to appear at his criminal trial.<\/p>\n The woman\u2019s testimony against Michel, the former medical director of Excel Medical Center<\/a>, was key because the case lacked physical evidence. The then-38-year-old patient from Northeast Philadelphia<\/a> had claimed Michel raped her during a 2024 office visit.<\/p>\n Michel\u2019s criminal defense lawyer, Andrew Gay Jr.<\/a>, told jurors the sex was a \u201cterrible\u201d mistake but consensual.<\/p>\n \u201cAs terrible of a decision as it could have been for a physician to make,\u201d Gay said during his opening statement Monday on the trial\u2019s first day, \u201cit was an entirely consensual act between two adults.\u201d<\/p>\n Gay declined to comment on Michel\u2019s behalf after Common Pleas Court Judge Chesley Lightsey<\/a> dismissed the case at the prosecutor\u2019s request.<\/p>\n \u201cThis case is done,\u201d Lightsey declared before excusing the jury empaneled at the city\u2019s Criminal Justice Center.<\/p>\n The stakes were high for the 56-year-old doctor from Jenkintown<\/a> on two fronts: He faced up to 20 years in prison on the rape charge alone and loss of his medical license, if convicted.<\/p>\n Under state law<\/a>, doctors convicted of sexual offenses are prohibited from being licensed and practicing medicine. <\/p>\n The Pennsylvania State Board of Osteopathic Medicine<\/a>, which regulates and oversees licensure of osteopathic doctors like Michel, suspended his license last year<\/a> after he apologized for having sex with a patient \u2014 a violation of state licensure laws. As of Tuesday, his license remained suspended, according to a state spokesperson. <\/p>\n Excel Medical Center, which Michel founded<\/a>, is currently closed, Gay said. The center was composed of 12 locations in the Philadelphia region, with more than 200 employees and about 20,000 patients.<\/p>\n In a letter to the medical board last year, Michel described the October 2024 sex with the patient as a \u201clapse in judgment\u201d for which he is \u201cprofoundly contrite.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI fully acknowledge that I crossed a professional boundary,\u201d Michel wrote to board members last year. \u201cI recognize that boundaries are not only a legal and ethical obligation but a critical element of safe, respectful, and therapeutic care. I make no excuses for my actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Claims of rape<\/p>\n The patient, identified in police records by the initials \u201cD.R.,\u201d had accused Michel of kissing her during a May 2024 exam at his East Mount Airy<\/a> office on Stenton Avenue. She told him \u201cno,\u201d left the office, and did not report the kissing incident.<\/p>\n About five months later, she went to an appointment at Michel\u2019s North Philadelphia<\/a> office on West Diamond Street. During the Oct. 14, 2024, visit, she said, Michel raped her with such force that her head banged twice against the exam room wall. She pushed him off her and fell to the ground crying, according to criminal court records.<\/p>\n In early November 2024, she told her husband what had happened and subsequently filed a police report, records show. <\/p>\n Late last year, a second woman accused<\/a> Michel of sexual abuse. The woman had worked for Michel as a medical assistant from 2015 to 2019 at his East Mount Airy<\/a> office and at a location in Germantown<\/a> on Chelten Avenue. <\/p>\n The former employee claimed that beginning in 2018, Michel touched her breasts over her clothing on multiple occasions while she was working in the office. He additionally groped her vagina over her clothing before she quit in 2019, according to a document filed in court last year by the Philadelphia District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Prosecutors never charged him in connection with those accusations, but argued the former employee\u2019s claims bolstered their patient rape case, given there were no witnesses. Gay, Michel\u2019s lawyer, had declined to comment after the second woman came forward.<\/p>\n A no-show witness<\/p>\n In the patient\u2019s case, Philadelphia police arrested Michel in February 2025 after prosecutors charged him with three felonies \u2014 rape, sexual assault, and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse \u2014 and two misdemeanors \u2014 indecent exposure and assault. He was released on bail. <\/p>\n Assistant District Attorney Allison Christian dropped all but the rape and sexual assault charges prior to the trial. Michel pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n The former patient had been scheduled to testify on Tuesday morning. Christian told the judge that she had spoken with her the night before. She sounded \u201cvery emotional\u201d and seemed to be having a \u201cnervous breakdown,\u201d but said she would testify, Christian said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been calling her since 8:15 a.m. this morning every 15 minutes,\u201d Christian said. \u201cI haven\u2019t heard from her.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to issue a bench warrant for a rape victim,\u201d she said before dropping the charges.<\/p>\n A path to practicing medicine<\/p>\n Prior to the patient\u2019s accusations, Michel had no criminal complaints and no disciplinary history against his medical license, state records show.<\/p>\n Michel agreed to be disciplined<\/a> by the board of osteopathic medicine for violating a state law prohibiting sexual misconduct, according to a June 2025 agreement. <\/p>\n The discipline included a $4,000 civil penalty and an indefinite suspension of his medical license for a minimum of 24 months, followed by probation, according to a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees licensing boards. <\/p>\n While Michel is on probation, a chaperone must be physically present when he treats female patients and a separate monitor must oversee his practice. Michel also must complete in-person classes on physician-patient boundaries and 15 hours of continuing education on ethics, the disciplinary agreement says<\/a>.<\/p>\n The state spokesperson on Tuesday said the board will reinstate Michel\u2019s license to \u201cnon-suspended, probationary status\u201d once he has met the agreement\u2019s reinstatement conditions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min A prosecutor dropped felony rape and sexual assault charges against Philadelphia-area doctor John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,108393],"class_list":["post-254161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-rape-charges-dropped-john-smyth-michel-excel-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}