Marvin Sazant had his licence revoked by the College of Physicians and Surgeons.Jim Ross
In a blistering judgment laced with bizarre detail, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has revoked the licence of a Toronto doctor accused of sexually victimizing four boys, one a former patient, and ordered him to pay more than $95,000 in legal costs.
The ruling turns a page in a protracted tussle between the college's disciplinary committee and Marvin Sazant, 74, who has steadfastly protested his innocence through years of committee hearings and criminal proceedings.
"When a doctor preys on young boys for his own sexual purposes, he degrades not only them but also the profession of which he is a member," the ruling said of the incidents, alleged to have occurred between 1970 and 1991 when the boys were aged between 8 and 14 or 15.
"Dr. Sazant's abhorrent actions devastated two lives and brought disrepute to the profession as a whole."
The complainants, all now adults, variously described being fondled, masturbated, wrestled with, tied up with ropes, compelled to perform oral sex, ejaculated upon and hit with a belt.
Bondage magazines were found by police in Dr. Sazant's North York home, and on one occasion he arranged for himself to be tied to a bed by a 12-year-old who was plied with alcohol.
Criminal-indecency charges, laid in 1999, were ultimately withdrawn or stayed because the court case stretched out for more
than seven years, denying him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.
The college subsequently pursued the case, and in a ruling released Friday said Dr. Sazant's denials were "not credible," concluding
that in three of the four cases, the allegations had been proved.
Once the medical adviser to the Canadian Boxing Federation and a onetime friend to murdered boxer and gangster Eddie Melo, Dr. Sazant has, since April, 2006, been forbidden under an interim college order to treat patients aged under 16.
Now he cannot practice medicine at all.
Dr. Sazant did not respond Friday to a request for comment, but two years ago he told The Globe and Mail that the complainants were motivated by greed and perhaps anti-Semitism.
"None of the allegations ever happened," he said.
The college oversees approximately 24,000 doctors, provincewide, and outright revocations of a physician's licence are rare, averaging about four a year.
In both the committee hearings and the earlier criminal case, Dr. Sazant was represented by defence lawyer Marie Henein, newly hired counsel to former Ontario attorney-general Michael Bryant, charged in the death this week of a bike courier.
The disciplinary committee wrote that if Dr. Sazant's sexual interests were confined to consenting adults, it would be his own business.
"But when his behaviour causes harm to children, the college and its members do have an interest."