Fertility physician accused of utilizing personal sperm dies in crash of hand-built airplane

YATES, N.Y. — A New York fertility physician who was accused of utilizing his personal sperm to impregnate a number of sufferers died over the weekend when the hand-built airplane he was in fell aside mid-flight and crashed, authorities mentioned.

Dr. Morris Wortman, 72, of Rochester, was a passenger within the experimental plane that went down Sunday in a pasture in Orleans County. The pilot, Earl Luce Jr., of Brockport, additionally was killed, in accordance with the county sheriff.

The crash of the plane, recognized by the National Transportation Safety Board as a Wittman W-5 Buttercup airplane, remained beneath investigation Tuesday.

Preliminary findings point out that “the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground in an orchard,” Sheriff Christopher Bourke mentioned in a information launch Monday. The fuselage continued west for one more 1,000 to 1,500 yards earlier than crashing.

Wortman was a widely known OB-GYN in western New York who was usually the goal of anti-abortion protesters. He was sued in 2021 by the daughter of one among his sufferers, who grew to become pregnant within the Nineteen Eighties. The lawsuit mentioned the physician secretly used his personal sperm whereas telling the affected person the donor had been a neighborhood medical pupil. It mentioned the physician saved the key even after the daughter, his organic offspring, grew to become his gynecology affected person.

The daughter found that Wortman was the donor after DNA family tree exams revealed she had at the very least 9 half-siblings, her medical malpractice swimsuit mentioned. The civil lawsuit, which is pending in Monroe County Court, mentioned follow-up DNA testing with Wortman’s daughter from his first marriage confirmed the genetic hyperlink.