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Miami Doctor's License Revoked After Botched Abortion

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A Staff, Wire Report

Published: February 6, 2009

Updated: 02/06/2009 11:05 am

TAMPA - The Florida Board of Medicine this morning unanimously voted to revoke the medical license of a doctor involved in a botched abortion.

Physician Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique refused to talk to reporters after the hearing at the Tampa Airport Marriott, ducking into a men's restroom to avoid television cameras.

Officials say Renelique worked at an abortion clinic outside Miami that was supposed to perform an abortion on 18-year-old Sycloria Williams, who was 23 weeks pregnant. But the doctor didn't arrive on time, and Williams went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.

Officials say one of the clinic owners who has no medical license cut the umbilical cord. Williams says the woman put the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.

Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box a week later after getting anonymous tips.

The state attorney's homicide division is investigating, though no charges have been filed.

The state Department of Health believes Renelique committed malpractice by failing to ensure that licensed personnel would be present when Williams was there, among other missteps.

Renelique's attorney, Joseph Harrison, told the medical board, "His record of a lifetime of practicing medicine does not warrant revocation."

The patient, Harrison said, "came in for an abortion. This patient came in to have the fetus rendered and terminated."

Renelique, Harrison said, was on his way when he was called on "an emergency bleeder … a woman who could have bled to death in another facility."

Renelique "faced the choice many other physicians do," Harrison said.

Williams' attorney, Tom Pennekamp, said he was "pleased at the action that the board took, and I was saddened a man like this had a license in the first place."

Pennekamp said he hopes the board next turns its sights on the clinic, which he said was still operating.

Pennekamp said he filed a lawsuit against Renelique and the clinic last week.

The case has riled the anti-abortion community, which contends the clinic's actions constitute murder.

"The baby was just treated as a piece of garbage," said Tom Brejcha, president of the Thomas More Society, a law firm that is also representing Williams. "People all over the country are just aghast."

Even those who support abortion rights are concerned about the allegations.

"It really disturbed me," Joanne Sterner, president of the Broward County chapter of the National Organization for Women, said after reviewing the administrative complaint against Renelique. "I know that there are clinics out there like this. And I hope that we can keep [women] from going to these types of clinics."

According to state records, Renelique received his medical training at the State University of Haiti. In 1991, he completed a four-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Interfaith Medical Center in New York.

New York records show Renelique has made at least five medical malpractice payments in the past decade, the circumstances of which were not detailed in the filings.

Williams struggled with the decision to have an abortion, Pennekamp said. She declined an interview request made through him.

She concluded she didn't have the resources or maturity to raise a child, he said, and went to the Miramar Women's Center on July 17, 2006. Sonograms indicated she was 23 weeks pregnant, according to the Department of Health. She met Renelique at a second clinic two days later.

Renelique gave Williams Laminaria, a drug that dilates the cervix, and prescribed three other medications, according to the administrative complaint filed by the Health Department. She was told to go to yet another clinic, A Gyn Diagnostic Center in Hialeah, where the procedure would be performed the next day, July 20, 2006.

Williams arrived in the morning and was given more medication.

The Department of Health account continues as follows: Just before noon she began to feel ill. The clinic contacted Renelique. Two hours later, he still hadn't shown up. Williams went into labor and delivered the baby.

"She came face to face with a human being," Pennekamp said. "And that changed everything."

The complaint says one of the clinic owners, Belkis Gonzalez, came in and cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then placed the baby in a plastic bag and the bag in a trash can.

Williams' lawsuit offers a cruder account: She says Gonzalez knocked the baby off the recliner chair where she had given birth, onto the floor. The baby's umbilical cord was not clamped, allowing her to bleed out. Gonzalez scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.

No working telephone number could be found for Gonzalez, and an attorney who has represented the clinic in the past did not return a message.

At 23 weeks, an otherwise healthy fetus would have a slim but legitimate chance of survival. Quadruplets born at 23 weeks last year at the Nebraska Medical Center survived.

An autopsy determined Williams' baby — she named her Shanice — had filled her lungs with air, meaning she had been born alive, according to the Department of Health. The cause of death was listed as extreme prematurity.

Should prosecutors file murder charges, they'd have to prove the baby was born alive, said Robert Batey, a professor of criminal law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport. The defense might contend that the child would have died anyway, but most courts would not allow that argument, he said.

"Hastening the death of an individual who is terminally ill is still considered causing the death of that individual," Batey said. "And I think a court would rule similarly in this type of case."

Information from Tribune reporter Elaine Silvestrini and The Associated Press was used in this report.

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