Bryan Sack was found to possess “close-up images of children’s genitals from pediatric surgical procedures,” according to a newly filed lawsuit, which cites FBI findings from earlier this year

NEED TO KNOW

• A former pediatric doctor in Ohio has been accused of photographing children’s genitals during medical procedures
• Bryan Sack was arrested in February on charges of possession of child sexual abuse material and fired from his job
• He was charged in connection with child sexual abuse material allegedly from online, but the FBI later discovered images he took of patients in the same file-sharing account
• Some of Sack’s former patients are now seeking answers from the hospital he worked at, which said his charges were “not related to his clinical work”

Months after a former pediatric doctor in Ohio was arrested on child sex abuse charges, a lawsuit accuses him of photographing his patients’ genitals during medical procedures.

Bryan Sack was working as a pediatric urologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Toledo when he was arrested in February for possession of child sexual abuse material, among other charges, per 13 Action News. At the time, the hospital told the outlet in a statement that the charges were “not related to his clinical work,” but the parents of several of his former patients are pushing back on that in a newly filed lawsuit.

The parents of 13 of Sack’s former patients are seeking answers about why the former doctor allegedly stored photos taken of underage patients during medical procedures alongside child sex abuse images on a cloud storage platform, according to a complaint filed on Wednesday, Nov. 4, and viewed by PEOPLE. 13 Action News was first to report the news.

The complaint — filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan — alleges that Sack’s Dropbox account contained not only child pornography but also “numerous images of surgical procedures, including images/videos of similar procedures/pediatric ailments, depicting close-up images of children’s genitals.”

While Sack’s criminal charges stem from the files of child abuse images he allegedly downloaded from the internet, authorities uncovered many more images in his personal Dropbox account, according to ABC affiliate WXYZ.

In the more than 27,000 files of children found in the account, the lawsuit alleges that Sack had 1,291 files of child pornography in the same account, including “close-up images of children’s genitals from pediatric surgical procedures.” The lawsuit cited FBI findings from earlier this year.

Some of the 13 former patients named in the lawsuit, “many of them infants and toddlers,” were among those photographed during procedures, the filing alleges. Some of the parents of Sack’s former patients claim in the complaint that the former doctor photographed their children with what they “observed or believed” to be a cellphone. 

Several of the former patients were also “taken away from their parents, alone with Sack, undressed or under anesthesia,” the complaint states. During one genital examination, Sack allegedly used his own cell phone to photograph an infant’s “exposed genitals,” the complaint claims.

Following another alleged examination, in which a patient was examined by Sack alone, the child began exhibiting “a marked, uncharacteristic behavioral change involving privacy and physical boundaries with other children,” per the complaint.

David Champine — an attorney with Flood Law, which represents some of the plaintiffs in the filing — told WXYZ, “No one who hears this has to take a large logical leap to ask the question: Well, if he’s a pediatric urologist taking these intimate photos of his patients for medical purposes, why on earth would he be storing them in his cloud storage account alongside all this child sexually abusive material he’s found and downloaded from the internet?”

The lawsuit not only names Sack, but also the hospitals where he worked, which the filing claims “gave him that access without the safeguards that would have protected those children.” Nationwide Children’s Hospital – Toledo, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center are all named in the lawsuit. (Nationwide Children’s Hospital – Toledo is located on the Mercy Health – St. Vincent Medical Center campus.)

The complaint alleges invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress, as well as several claims of negligence against the hospitals named. It also makes a fraudulent concealment claim against Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital spokesperson said: “The safety, well-being and privacy of our patients are our top priority, and we have been told by multiple law enforcement agencies that the criminal charges against Dr. Sack were not related to his clinical activity.”

“Dr. Sack was immediately terminated after Nationwide Children’s learned of his arrest earlier this year and is no longer affiliated with Nationwide Children’s Hospital in any capacity,” the statement concluded.

The purpose of the newly filed lawsuit, the filing states, is not only to hold the former pediatric urologist Sack accountable, but also “hold the hospitals accountable for failing to supervise him, to chaperone his encounters with undressed and anesthetized children, and to enforce their own prohibition on clinical images leaving their systems, and to compel the identification, recovery and destruction of every image of every child that Sack removed from the clinical setting.”

The lawsuit seeks financial compensation, as well as counseling and therapy for each of Sack’s former patients named in the filing. The suit also wants the hospitals to notify each patient Sack has ever treated and hand over all patient images in his possession for destruction.

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PEOPLE reached out to Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center and Sack’s attorney on Saturday, Nov. 7, but did not immediately hear back.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE, Parker Stinar and Patrick Lannen, who represent several of Sack’s former clients, said in part: “Families trust children’s hospitals to protect their kids. We are investigating the full scope of Dr. Sack’s alleged conduct and will hold Nationwide Children’s and Mercy Health – St. Vincent accountable for failing to protect their patients.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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