Murder Trial Opens for Fetish M.D.
By MICHELLE WILLIAMS
08:58 PM ET 09/28/99
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A former doctor is on trial for murder in the death of an
elderly man who paid $10,000 to get a healthy leg amputated merely to satisfy a sexual
fetish. John Ronald Brown performed the operation in May 1998 on Philip Bondy, 79, at a
clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Bondy, frail from pneumonia and heart disease, died two days
later at a motel outside San Diego from gangrene poisoning.
Brown, 77, lost his medical license in 1977 after three patients nearly died
from sex-change operations he performed in places such as a garage and a hotel.
He served three years in prison after a 1989 conviction for performing surgery
to shift a man's hairline during a sex-change operation. Last week, he pleaded guilty to
again practicing medicine without a license by performing shoddy sex-change operations.
He could receive life in prison if convicted of murdering Bondy. He has pleaded
innocent, saying he had no intention of killing Bondy and didn't show a disregard for the
man's health. On Tuesday, Gregg Furth of New York testified that he and Bondy shared a
fetish known as apotemnophilia, the sexual desire to remove a limb because the person
doesn't believe it should be part of his body.
He said he and Bondy searched for years to find someone to perform their
operations and finally learned about Brown. Furth paid Brown to amputate one of his legs
last year but he backed out at the last moment - in part because he saw a Mexican doctor
who was to assist Brown walking into the clinic carrying a large butcher knife.
Two weeks later, Bondy, 79, traveled to San Diego for his surgery. Afterward,
Furth said, Bondy called him and asked him to accompany him back to New York. Furth flew
to San Diego and arrived at the motel May 10. He said Bondy's leg was bandaged and he
noticed no complications.
The next morning, he found Bondy dead in his motel bed. Police found receipts in
the room showing he had giving Brown two payments of $5,000 in cash: one for the
operation, one for recovery care. Superior Court Judge Bernard Revak ruled Tuesday that
two transsexuals whose sex-change operations were botched by Brown could testify at the
murder trial. Prosecutors want to show that Brown had a pattern of disregarding his
patients' health and safety.
One transsexual, referred to only as Carrie, started her testimony with her long
dark hair combed over her face, startling some jurors. The prosecutor persuaded her to
sweep aside her hair after assurances that TV news crews would not photograph her face.
She testified that she heard about Brown through an underground network of other
transsexuals. She said she knew Brown had lost his license but wanted someone to improve
the appearance of her female genitalia so she could model nude.
Carrie said her surgery, performed in a Tijuana clinic, wasn't successful and
she was sent home without antibiotics or pain medicine. Even so, a year later - two weeks
before Brown's arrest - Carrie allowed him to come to her home to correct the procedure.
It also failed.
