The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)

February 2, 1996 Friday
FINAL EDITION

Psychiatrist denies, then finally admits having sex with patient

BYLINE: GALE SCOTT

SECTION: STATE; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 1062 words

For six years, Rocky Hill psychiatrist Dr. Michael A. Tricarico denied having sex with a 24-year-old woman patient.
He denied it to the courts during a civil suit filed by the Union County woman after the two-year relationship ended. He said the valentines, love notes, expensive gifts and cash he gave to the patient known in court as “D.K.’` were just part of therapy.
He denied having sex with the seriously ill woman, an incest victim, to administrative law Judge Kathleen Duncan. When the judge did not believe him and recommended the state Board of Medical Examiners revoke his license, he kept on denying it, through months of hearings. He created enough doubt that the board agreed in September to stay any penalty until Tricarico was evaluated by an outside psychiatrist. Above all, throughout the long process of stays and appeals, Tricarico denied his sexual misconduct to his wife and family.
But in August, in the office of Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta, Ga., psychiatrist, Tricarico, 59, admitted he was lying: To the courts, to his colleagues, and to his wife and family.
Finally last month, almost 10 years after the woman filed her suit, the state took away Tricarico’s medical license for three years. He is barred from practice for two years and in the third year he will be allowed to practice on probation with a suspended license.
Tricarico’s lawyer, Benjamin Cittadino of Lawrence Township, refused to comment.
Tricarico had arrived in Atlanta last Aug. 23, Abel wrote in his report, which was released yesterday under the Freedom of Information Law.
“Shortly thereafter, his denial collapsed and he admitted to having sexual intercourse with patient D.K., of which he had been accused.’`
This was news to his wife and family, Abel wrote, who had steadfastly believed Tricarico’s denials. “There was tremendous chaos in his relationship with his wife as he revealed to her during the course of his treatment that he had been sexually involved with his patient . . . His children’s perception of him changed dramatically.’`
In taking away his license, the board rejected the recommendation of Abel, who went on to treat Tricarico for two months at his National Network for the treatment of professional sexual misconduct in Atlanta.
Abel, in a report to the board, said Tricarico’s admission of guilt was a breakthrough that led to successful rehabilitation. Abel recommended that Tricarico be allowed to continue to treat patients under supervision.
He also said Tricarico had passed polygraphs indicating he had not had sex with any other patients before or since the misconduct with D.K.
A battery of physical and psychological tests given Tricarico, the son of a New York City Transit worker who went to medical school in Italy after graduating from Long Island University in Brooklyn, showed that he suffers from “attention deficit disorder’` and is hyperactive. However he had no signs of organic brain disorders that can sometimes lead to sexual misconduct, Abel found.
According to Kevin Earle, executive director of the medical board, the board was miffed that Abel had not told them in September that Tricarico had admitted the sexual misconduct. Instead, Abel waited until Tricarico had completed two months of therapy at his institute.
In an initial report to the board on Sept. 5, Abel did not say whether the sexual activity had taken place, leaving the board to draw its own conclusions.
But when asked for more information, Abel confirmed that Tricarico had confided he had a sexual relationship with the patient.
“Abel told us Tricarico had asked him not to put his admissions into the report, to protect his wife. We felt Abel was taking Tricarico’s side too much, that he was coming in as an advocate. We wanted a neutral evaluation, and we won’t be referring people to him anymore,’` said Earle.
Abel, in an interview in November, said that while he has a 99 percent success rate treating professionals accused of sex offenses, about half of those treated go home to find their medical boards suspend or revoke their licenses anyway.
The release of the Abel report yesterday was the first notice his accusers had that Tricarico finally admitted what they were saying was true, said Edwin McCreedy. A Cranford lawyer who represented Tricarico’s victim in a civil suit settled out of court, McCreedy said he was disappointed the penalty was not more severe.
“He denied the sexual allegations all through the civil suit and all through the administrative hearings before the medical board . . . If he misleads everybody then admits it is true, you wonder whether a suspension is an appropriate punishment,’` McCreedy said.
His client, a Union County woman, hoped Tricarico would be permanently barred from practicing. However, McCreedy said, “She feels most vindicated that he now admits she was telling the truth all along. This was very important to her.’`
The medical board has proposed new regulations which would make New Jersey the first state to specifically bar sexual relationships between doctors and patients.
Under the new rules, which are expected to become law by the end of the year, no doctor could have sex with a patient until a year after the last treatment or until the patient recieved an official letter saying he or she was no longer in the doctor’s care.
For psychiatrists, the period will be two years. Further, the state could charge the physician with sexual misconduct for being sexually involved with a patient at any time after two years if the patient is particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
In Abel’s report, he said Tricarico needed to be educated about these “boundary violations,’` specifically that there is “an inequality of power between the participants such as a physician and a patient. The issue was examined in considerable detail to clarify to Dr. Tricarico how it is never possible for a patient to give consent to be sexual with a physician, especially if that physician is a psychiatrist.’`
In the report, Tricarico was interviewed by a social worker, Brent W. Warberg. “In terms of his future,’` Warberg wrote, “he wants to practice `forever.’ He does not want to retire. He wants to fit into the new mental health field as it relates to managed care. It is his hope he can get this current problem resolved and get his practice and his life back with some sort of equilibrium.’`