State slow to discipline pediatrician

Doctor accused of child porn is still certified to practice

A pediatrician accused of snapping pornographic photos of children was allowed to keep holding himself out as a doctor for months because Florida’s law is slow to discipline medical workers accused of crimes.

The state typically takes months — or even more than a year — to investigate and conduct hearings before revoking or suspending a doctor’s license, no matter how disturbing the allegations.

Dr. Michael Mizrachy admitted he secretively longed for underage girls and took photos of girls sunbathing or sleeping, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said. His arrest on Tuesday shocked parents and led to calls from a lawmaker for his license to be revoked. But days after his arrest, Mizrachy on Friday remained state certified to practice medicine — still eligible to write prescriptions and present himself as a doctor, an official state website shows.

Emergency action can be taken to suspend the licenses of doctors facing serious criminal charges like Mizrachy, the courts and oversight agency rules say. But that did not happen in Mizrachy’s case, or at least not yet.

Jason Mahon, interim communications director for the Florida Department of Health, said Friday that the state surgeon general can issue an emergency order against a doctor’s license under special circumstances, pertaining to violations that pose “an immediate serious danger to public health.” He said

all complaints and investigations against license holders are to remain confidential until 10 days after a governing board finds there is cause to take action.

“The Department is committed to conducting thorough and objective investigations into all complaints we receive,” Mahon said.

Although Mizrachy, 49, is under court orders to stay away from minors, state Sen. Lauren Book, who is also the mother of two of Mizrachy’s former patients, is demanding that his license be revoked or suspended immediately.

She called him a predator whose “deviant predilections and illegal activities pose a unique and targeted threat to the children of Broward County and beyond.” Book received assurances from the chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine that the matter would be reviewed.

The senator is incensed that Mizrachy was allowed to keep his license to practice medicine for over three months after investigators searched his home, she said. Mizrachy stopped working for the pediatrics practice around that time, but his location after that is unclear.

“There has to be a better way,” Book said about the lack of action on his license.

The board holds the power to yank the doctor’s license even before holding a hearing where he could object, said Barry Wax, a Miami-based criminal defense lawyer who has represented physicians fighting for their licenses while facing felony counts.

An emergency suspension order must be in cases where officials determine there is “imminent danger to the public health, safety and welfare,” he said.

Wax believes the

Mizrachy case could meet that threshold.

“He’s a pediatrician looking at child porn,” Wax said. “That puts you in a totally different sphere. One would think an appeals court would be very hard-pressed to reverse an emergency suspension order.”

Mizrachy lost his job with West Broward Pediatrics when authorities began searching his home and computer files, recovering images of girls as young as 10. “We have no evidence that any crimes were committed in the course of his professional duties,” the Plantation-based practice said in a statement.

The Sheriff ’s Office says the charges are unrelated to patients, based on the evidence they have so far.

After months of gathering evidence and even doing surveillance on Mizrachy, authorities moved in on him early one October morning. Armed with a search warrant for his home, they removed 10 thumb drives, two laptops, three external drives, an iPhone, two iPads and four Amazon Kindles.

The 22-page warrant, obtained Friday by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, details a broad scope of allegations dating to 2015. Investigators uncovered a disturbing video involving an adult male and a girl between ages 8 and 10 and images of underage girls, clothed and unclothed.

Mizrachy is accused of online chats with a 15-yearold through the use of a phone app, and he obtained naked photos of the girl. Records say Mizrachy admitted to having this “hidden secret” for several years. “Michael Mizrachy advised he would never tell his wife or children that he took the photographs and that they were only for him and he took them because it was sexually exciting,” an arrest report says.

According to the search warrant, Mizrachy also had a photo of his genitals titled, “At work thinking about you,” apparently taken when he was sitting at his desk at the pediatrician’s office.

The Sheriff ’s Office did not obtain a search warrant for Mizrachy’s now former office at West Broward Pediatrics, though it did notify the practice that Mizrachy was under investigation.

Asked why detectives did not search Mizrachy’s work computer, the Sheriff ’s Office said this: “The investigation has only shown illegal activity on the devices at Mizrachy’s residence, which were personal. Without a [link] to illegal activity involving the pediatrician’s office, there was no legal authority to search its computers.”

The Sheriff ’s Office says that could change “if the investigation uncovers illegal activity pertaining to the pediatrician’s office.”

According to the Florida Department of Health website, doctors can be subjected to an emergency suspension or restriction order if authorities decide “the licensee is unsafe to practice.”

But the oversight rules state that the emergency action is meant for specific issues tied to the doctor’s practice — such as sexually assaulting a patient, giving substandard care that harms a patient, or overprescribing drugs. Mizrachy is accused of none of those transgressions.

In other instances, officials tend to follow extensive procedures to receive, investigate and handle complaints against a practitioner.