Article - March 27, 2008 - Youngstown Vindicator

Local chiropractor testifies, denies allegations
The tailbone adjustment is lawful and clinically accepted, the chiropractor says

By Peter H. Milliken

YOUNGSTOWN — Dr. Gregory S. Dew denied allegations of sexual abuse made against him by his former gymnastics students and chiropractic patients as he testified in his own defense.

“I’m just telling the truth as I know it,” Dr. Dew said under cross-examination Wednesday by Natasha K. Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor. “There are two sides to every story. I’m giving you my side.”

Dr. Dew’s jury trial began Monday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Dr. Dew, 46, of Kelly Park Road, Columbiana, is on trial on multiple rape and gross sexual imposition charges contained in two indictments.

The first indictment alleges he engaged in sexual activity with two girls, ages 15 to 17, who were his students at the Youngstown Gymnastics Center in Boardman between 1990 and 1992, before he became a chiropractor.

Dr. Dew was fired from the Physicians Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Center in Boardman, where he was a chiropractor, immediately after his March 2007 arrest on those charges.

The second indictment alleges Dr. Dew sexually abused three adult women who were his chiropractic patients between 2005 and 2007.

Dr. Dew said there were typically 50 to 100 people in the gym at the gymnastics center, including students and coaches, and that he was never alone with either of the gymnastics students he was accused of sexually abusing.

Under examination by his lawyer, Elizabeth Kelley of Cleveland, he acknowledged having once been in a hot tub with one of the girls with many other people in and around the hot tub, but he denied placing his hand under the girl’s bikini.

He acknowledged hugging one of the girls at a roadside rest stop while a caravan of contestants was returning home from a national qualifying meet in order to console her after her disappointing performance, but said their lips accidentally touched.

“I didn’t really intend to kiss her at all,” he said, adding that the encounter occurred while she was calling her father from a pay telephone.

Full story