More evidence found in doc’s ‘secret room’

Search by feds of pediatrician’s home yields more images of naked children

Federal agents searching the home of an Albuquerque pediatrician charged with possession of child porn found a “secret room” with more images of naked children — including some apparently taken at a hospital — and other evidence against him, according to a court filing.

Dr. Guy Rosenschein is in federal custody and is seeking to be released into his sister’s custody in California to await trail. Mention of the secret room and its contents were included in a motion filed by federal prosecutors this week opposing Rosenchein’s request. Chief U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo has not ruled on the matter.

U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez said in a letter to Presbyterian Hospital officials on Friday that there was no evidence that the photos taken at a hospital were taken at a Presbyterian facility, or even criminal.

“At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that the taking of the photographs was not clinically appropriate,” Martinez said of the hospital photos.

However, federal and state court charging docu-

ments against Rosenschein allege that some other photographs found in Rosenschein’s possession were of children engaged in sex acts with adult men.

Rosenschein, 63, was a pediatric urologist — a specialty that includes male reproductive organs — at Presbyterian Hospital from 2013 until he was fired immediately after his arrest on suspicion of possession of child pornography on Nov. 8, said Dr. Jason Mitchell, the chief medical officer at Presbyterian, in an interview.

“We were as shocked as the community,” he said. “These allegations are terrible.”

Rosenschein has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. Peter Schoenburg, Rosenschein’s attorney, said the allegations are the result of “baseless hysteria.”

“He’s a pediatric surgeon,” Schoenburg said. The photographs “are for medical purposes only.”

Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies originally executed a search warrant on Nov. 8 and arrested Rosenschein on child pornography charges, which were filed in state District Court.

During that search, deputies found a thumb drive on Rosenshcein key chain that contained dozens of images of young boys and girls having sex with men, according to a criminal complaint.

He was released from custody the next day after posting a $10,000 cash or surety bond.

When he returned to his home on Archuleta NE, an FBI agent immediately arrested him on federal charges of suspicion of possession and distribution of child pornography, according to a criminal complaint.

After his second arrest, federal agents executed a second search of Rosenschein’s home.

During that search, agents found what they described as a “secret room” that contained two safes. Schoenburg said the room was attached to a closet and was built by the homeowner decades before Rosenchein moved to Albuquerque.

Inside one of the safes were pictures of a naked boy, time stamped April 1994, and flight logs detailing a trip to Cambodia in 1994, according to the prosecutor’s motion.

Investigators also found a cellphone that contained a dozen pictures of male genitalia that appeared to have been taken at a hospital.

“Investigators learned that it is against Presbyterian Hospital policy for physicians to take medical photographs on their personal phones,” the motion states.

Agents also found a cellphone that contained Yahoo Messenger conversations between a user account of “Cambodia1994,” who claimed to be a teenage male in the United States, and others in which they talked graphically about sex between adult males and boys, according to the motion.

Schoenburg said that, in the mid-1990s, Rosenschein, who is a pilot, flew to Cambodia several times as part of his volunteer work for Évasions Sans Frontiéres, an organization similar to Doctors Without Borders.

“He was delivering medical supplies and medical personnel to Cambodia at a time when Cambodia was in ruins,” Schoenburg said, referring to a civil struggle between opposing government groups in the country.

Prosecutors filed their motion on Wednesday in response to the filing by Rosenschein’s attorneys asking that he be released from federal custody and be allowed to stay with his sister in Arcadia, Calif., where he would wear an ankle monitor until trial. They also asked that Rosenschein be allowed to use the internet.

At the time of his original arrest by sheriff’s deputies, Rosenschein was at his home alone with a 16-yearold boy who was found in the master bedroom wearing only underwear, according to the criminal complaint filed against him. He denied having a sexual relationship with the boy.

Rosenschein said the boy was a former patient who occasionally stayed with him and that Rosenschein had flown the boy around the country in the doctor’s planes or his helicopter. He said he also had provided flights to another former patient of his from Presbyterian, according to the complaint.

In the wake of Rosenchein’s arrest, Mitchell said that hospital officials created a hotline for parents of Rosenschein’s former patients in case they had concerns or questions. He said hospital officials also have started a review to determine if there were any signs that Rosenschein had acted inappropriately while employed there.

“We have no information that leads us to believe that anything inappropriate happened at our facilities,” Mitchell said. “We haven’t found anything that could have helped predict this.”