American Fork chiropractor's secretary testifies

AMERICAN FORK — To one patient, Dr. Grant Hildreth was not just her chiropractor. He was her boss and, she assumed, her friend.

So when she said Hildreth varied from a routine scapula treatment session and began rubbing her genitals and breasts in what she called a sexual manner, the woman said she froze.

"I think I was in shock," the woman said Tuesday during day two of Hildreth's criminal trial. "I didn't know what to think. He was my boss, he was my doctor, and I thought looking out for my best interest and my welfare."

Hildreth, an American Fork chiropractor, is on trial for six felonies of forcible sex abuse for allegedly inappropriately touching female patients during routine exams.

Hildreth was arrested June 11, after a former secretary — the woman testifying Friday — went to police with concerns that she had been inappropriately touched several times by Hildreth.

During after-work chiropractic sessions, said the woman (the Deseret Morning News does not name victims of alleged sex crimes), they would often talk about relatively personal matters, and one day the subject of her bladder infection came up.

She told him it was gone, but a vaginal infection had taken its place. She said Hildreth volunteered to examine her.

Defense attorney Carolyn Howard focused her questioning of the woman on who took off the woman's pants and whether she ever said no to the examinations.

"On four occasions that you had the vagina inspection, you did willingly take your own clothes off?" Howard asked.

"Yes," the woman replied. She also said she never told Hildreth "no."

Responding to questions from prosecutor Alex Ludlow, the woman said she told Hildreth "that's enough" when the examinations began to include intense vaginal rubbing that she said became painful.

The woman started crying on the stand as she testified she thought Hildreth was trying to sexually arouse her.

"All I know is I was being violated," the woman said, wiping at her eyes.

Howard then questioned why, if this alleged abuse first happened on a Friday, would the woman return the following Monday and bring her two daughters so Hildreth could perform adjustments on them.

"In your police report, you specifically wrote that 'after Friday, if I went back, he would try to sexually arouse me.' You don't remember that?" Howard asked.

"I don't remember writing (that) after Friday," the woman said.

During questioning from Ludlow, the woman said she somehow convinced herself it hadn't really happened and that's why she went back to work and treatment on Monday.

"How did you arrive at that conclusion?" Ludlow asked.

"Because I didn't want to believe it, I guess," she replied.

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E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com

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