St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
Doctor loses license for misconduct
By Carol Gentry
June 7, 1993

Florida authorities have known since 1987 that a Tampa child psychiatrist likes to have sex with boys. But for legal reasons they have been unable to take his medical license away.

Until now.

On Sunday, the Florida Board of Medicine revoked the license of Dr. Donald Lee Rife, following the lead of a similar board in Vermont.

The Florida board cited Vermont officials’ assessment that Rife is a sexual predator.

Rife volunteers in schools and juvenile detention centers and other places where it would be easy to recruit children, the Vermont officials said. In addition, they said, he abused troubled youngsters who were sent to his private practice.

“In the guise of healer, counselor and responsible adult, (Rife) repeatedly took advantage of his young patients,” Vermont officials said.

Rife, 58, was not present at his hearing in West Palm Beach on Sunday. His attorney, Paul B. Johnson of Tampa, said Rife is out of the state but declined to say where. The attorney said he doesn’t think Rife is practicing psychiatry. Three years ago, Rife had medical licenses in Massachusetts and Virginia in addition to Florida and Vermont. It was not clear Sunday whether any of those licenses is still valid.

Johnson said Rife will appeal. He expressed confidence the courts will overturn the Florida decision, based on several arguments:

The alleged abuse in Vermont took place before Florida issued Rife’s license, so the Florida board lacks jurisdiction.

Florida requires a higher standard of proof than Vermont does, so it is improper for Florida to revoke based on Vermont’s action.

Florida shouldn’t act until Rife’s appeals in Vermont are exhausted.

“This case is just filled with deprivation of his rights under Florida law,” Johnson said.

But Assistant Attorney General M. Catherine Lannon advised the medical board it was within its legal rights to act. She said, “I can’t believe the courts would make you sit here for three or four years (and wait) while appeals are going on.”

Rife has been able to move from place to place without difficulty because he has impeccable credentials and glowing references.

A Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, Rife was trained at Harvard. After military service and a stint as director of a psychiatric institute in Alaska, he directed a similar facility in Vermont and became president of the Vermont Psychiatric Society.

In 1986 Rife joined the faculty at the University of Florida, where he was chief of the Student Mental Health Center. He also served as a consultant to the juvenile justice systems of several Florida counties.

While living in Gainesville, he became friends with a 7-year-old neighbor boy identified in the records by his initials, L. W.
In May 1987, when Rife went on a trip to Chicago, he gave L. W.’s mother a key to the house so she could collect his mail and water the plants. While she was inside, she saw a picture that horrified her. It was L. W., holding up a cloth frog, a gag toy that had human-sized male genitalia. L. W. was holding the frog to his mouth.

L. W.’s mother went straight to the police. Sgt. Donna Suereth questioned the boy, and he told her about games he played with Rife in the Jacuzzi whirlpool – with and without bathing suits.

Armed with a warrant, police searched Rife’s house and found incriminating photos and letters describing his sexual contacts with minors in other states.

Police met Rife’s plane at the airport.

Rife denied any misbehavior with L. W., however, and the case was not prosecuted when L. W.’s parents decided that testifying would be too traumatic.

With no criminal charges pending, it was left to Florida’s Department of Professional Regulation to investigate the case for the Board of Medicine. But it was a difficult case, because the agency had to prove that Rife’s conduct in his private life posed a significant risk to his patients.

At Rife’s formal hearing in February, he submitted a resume that stated he went to work in 1991 at the Tampa Neuropsychiatric Institute, which is owned by psychiatrist Walter Afield. Johnson said Rife used to do paperwork for the institute, but has been terminated.

At an earlier hearing in 1990, two psychiatrists hired by the defense, including Afield of Tampa, testified Rife was not a risk.

Rife’s attorney at the time, John Newton, said the liaisons were romantic “affairs” that the medical board had no business prying into. They had nothing to do with Rife’s psychiatry work, he said.

“We are all flawed in some way,” Newton said. “We shouldn’t be passing moral judgments.”

The lawyer claimed the charges arose from homophobia, or prejudice against homosexuals.

Larry McPherson, attorney for the Department of Professional Regulation, said that wasn’t so: “The issue here is that the boys were under 18.”

Hearing Officer Ella Jane Davis agreed. She recommended that Rife be reprimanded and restricted from treating males younger that 18.
Usually the Board of Medicine strips the license from any doctor who sexually abuses children. But attorneys advised the board to stick with the hearing officer’s recommendation for fear that a court would overturn anything harsher.

Rife thus retained his Florida license. But more trouble was arising in Vermont.

Between 1969 and 1983, when he moved to Florida, Rife treated thousands of children in Burlington, Vt., in his private practice and as a consultant to Vermont high schools.

In the 1980s some of his former patients, now grown, contacted authorities.

Three were men who said that when they were boys – one just 8 years old, the others in their teens – Rife used the counseling sessions to perform sexual acts on them. One said Rife took him to his home and allowed other adult men to abuse him. One was a woman who said that when she was in high school, Rife masturbated during her counseling sessions.

Vermont filed a formal complaint against Rife in October 1991.

The doctor’s attorney argued the charges were so old it was impossible to defend against them. Rife didn’t testify, and the Vermont board yanked his license last August.

On Sunday – exactly 10 years to the day after it granted Rife a license – the Florida board followed suit.