Cecil Jacobson: Fertility Fraud, Conviction, and Aftermath

Cecil B. Jacobson’s fertility fraud was one of the most notorious cases of medical deception in American history: a Virginia infertility specialist secretly used his own sperm to inseminate patients and tricked other women into believing they were pregnant when they were not. In March 1992, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia convicted him on 52 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, travel fraud, and perjury. DNA testing confirmed he had fathered at least 15 children through his patients, and prosecutors estimated the true number could be as high as 75.¹ He was sentenced to five years in federal prison without parole.²

Before the scandal broke, Jacobson had a strong professional reputation. He was credited with performing the first amniocentesis in the United States and had worked as a geneticist at George Washington University before opening the Reproductive Genetics Center Ltd. in Vienna, Virginia, which he operated from 1976 to 1988. Other doctors referred hundreds of infertile women to him. He called himself “the babymaker” and told patients, “God doesn’t give you babies — I do.”³ Patients paid up to $5,000 for fertility treatments.

What Jacobson Did to His Patients

Secretly Using His Own Sperm

Jacobson operated what he described to patients as an anonymous fresh-sperm donor program, claiming that fresh donor sperm improved the chances of conception. Trial evidence showed a very different practice. He would tell a patient a donor was waiting in another room, step out of the examination area, produce a sperm sample himself in his office bathroom, and return to perform the insemination.³ Eleven patients and partners testified they would not have agreed to the procedure had they known Jacobson was the sperm source.²

DNA and blood tests performed by immunologist Gary Michael Stuhlmiller of Roche Biomedical Laboratories on 17 children born to Jacobson’s patients identified him as the biological father of 15. Stuhlmiller testified that the odds of those children having a different father were roughly one in 28 trillion.⁴

Fake Pregnancies

The second part of the scheme involved convincing women they were pregnant when they were not. Jacobson injected patients with unusually frequent and large doses of human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone he knew would produce false-positive results on pregnancy tests.³ He then ran sonograms and pointed to shapes on the screen as if they were the baby. Evidence at trial showed he pointed to organs or fecal matter and told women they were seeing their child’s limbs or thumbs.⁵

Some patients believed they were pregnant for months and wore maternity clothes into what they thought was their fifth or sixth month. When the deception could no longer hold, Jacobson told them the fetus had died and been “reabsorbed” into their bodies. Expert witness Dr. Marian Damewood testified that “structures with bones don’t reabsorb,” calling the claim “unthinkable.”⁶

One patient, Vicki Eckhardt, testified that Jacobson diagnosed her with seven pregnancies, seven miscarriages, and seven reabsorptions over three years, without ever performing a single physical exam.⁶ Another patient, Christine Maimone, got a second opinion in 1987 from a different doctor who found her uterine cavity was empty. The next day, Jacobson still pointed out “Junior” on a sonogram.⁷ He also discouraged patients from consulting other gynecologists.³

How the Fraud Came to Light

The scheme ran undetected for years even as area physicians raised private concerns. One patient, Ellen Peirce, said her doctor discovered Jacobson had misled her as early as 1981. The Virginia Board of Medicine did not receive a formal complaint until 1987.⁸

In 1989 the Federal Trade Commission filed a civil action against Jacobson and his clinic charging him with false representations that his treatments guaranteed successful pregnancies.⁹ The same year, the Virginia Board of Medicine suspended his license. Under a consent order, he agreed not to practice medicine anywhere in the world for five years, was fined $7,000, and was required to establish a $250,000 patient compensation fund.¹⁰ Meanwhile, DNA testing on the children of his former patients was building the evidence that would drive the criminal case.

The Federal Case and Prison Sentence

A federal grand jury returned a 53-count indictment on November 21, 1991, charging mail fraud, wire fraud, travel fraud, and perjury; one mail fraud count was dismissed before trial. Jacobson pleaded not guilty the next day.¹¹ The twelve-day trial took place in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia before Judge James C. Cacheris.⁵

On March 4, 1992, the jury found Jacobson guilty on all 52 remaining counts.¹² Jury foreman Daniel Richard said Jacobson “was like a conductor on a train. Some of his patients got off, ecstatic that they had a baby, but others felt he lied to keep them on the train.” Jacobson told reporters, “I spent my life trying to help women have children. If I felt I was a criminal or broke the law, I would never have done it.”¹

On May 8, 1992, Judge Cacheris sentenced Jacobson to five years in federal prison with no possibility of parole, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $75,000 in fines, $39,205 in restitution to victims who discovered Jacobson had fathered their children, and a $2,600 special assessment.⁵ The sentence exceeded federal minimum guidelines. Judge Cacheris departed upward after reviewing roughly 100 victim letters describing “financial trouble, marital problems, deep depression, physical pain and spiritual agony,” saying he had “not seen a case where there has been this degree of emotional anguish and psychological trauma.”¹³

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously affirmed the convictions and the sentence in 1993, rejecting both Jacobson’s argument that federal mail and wire fraud statutes did not reach his conduct and his challenge to the upward departure.⁵

License Revocation and Civil Lawsuits

On June 4, 1992, shortly after sentencing, the Virginia Board of Medicine formally revoked Jacobson’s medical license, a step required under state law following his felony convictions. He was permitted under state law to seek reinstatement annually.¹⁴¹⁰

Jacobson also faced civil litigation. One couple filed a $36 million malpractice, negligence, and fraud lawsuit in Fairfax County Circuit Court after learning Jacobson had used his own sperm; they had three children through his services. The case settled out of court on July 20, 1993, on undisclosed terms.¹⁵

Why the Case Still Matters

Jacobson’s prosecution was one of the first high-profile fertility fraud cases in the United States, and it exposed a gap in the law that would last for decades. Prosecutors had to fit his conduct into general mail and wire fraud statutes because no criminal law specifically addressed a doctor secretly substituting his own sperm for a donor’s.

No state had a dedicated fertility fraud statute until 2019, when Indiana passed the first such law in the wake of the Dr. Donald Cline case, another fertility doctor who secretly used his own sperm on patients. Cline could only be charged with obstruction of justice for lying to investigators, because Indiana law at the time did not treat his conduct as a sexual offense or a battery.¹⁶ Several other states, including California and Texas, have since enacted similar statutes.¹⁷

Consumer DNA testing has also changed how these cases surface. In the Cline matter, donor-conceived children used platforms like 23andMe to find half-siblings and identify their biological father, ultimately confirming at least 23 connections.¹⁸ Whether Jacobson’s biological children have connected the same way is not documented in available reporting.

What Became of Jacobson

After serving his federal sentence, Jacobson returned to his home state of Utah. He died on March 5, 2021, at age 84 at his home in Springville, Utah, from complications related to prior health conditions.¹⁹

1
The New York Times. Doctor Is Found Guilty in Fertility Case
2
Los Angeles Times. Infertility Doctor Gets 5 Years
3
The Washington Post. Fertility Doctor Accused of Using His Own Sperm
4
The Washington Post. DNA and Blood Tests Link Children, Fertility Doctor
5
Justia. United States v. Jacobson, 4 F.3d 987
6
Chicago Tribune. Fertility Doctor Betrayed Us, Patients Testify
7
Roanoke Times. Jacobson Trial Testimony
8
The Washington Post. Where Were Whistleblowers
9
Quackwatch. FTC Action Against Jacobson
10
Deseret News. Virginia Board Revokes License of Convicted Infertility Doctor
11
The Washington Post. The Fertility Doctor Who Got Jail Time
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The Washington Post. Jacobson Guilty on All 52 Counts of Fraud, Perjury
13
Deseret News. Infertility Doctor Gets 5 Years Without Parole
14
The Washington Post. Former Fertility Doctor Loses Medical License
15
The Washington Post. Jacobson Suit Settled
16
DuPage County Bar Association. Fertility Fraud Legislation
17
Cambridge University Press. Richards v. Kiken and the Legal Implications of Fertility Fraud
18
Fox News. Fertility Doctor’s Secret Reveals Discovery of at Least 23 Half-Siblings
19
Memorial Utah. Dr. Cecil Bryant Jacobson