Morris Wortman: Fertility Fraud Allegations and Lawsuits

Morris Wortman was a Rochester, New York, OB-GYN accused of secretly using his own sperm to inseminate fertility patients during the 1980s, a deception uncovered decades later when consumer DNA tests linked more than a dozen people to him as their biological father. The Morris Wortman fertility fraud allegations produced civil lawsuits but never criminal charges, and Wortman died in a May 2023 plane crash before the claims against him were resolved. His estate has since agreed to a confidential settlement with one of the women who sued.¹

What Wortman Was Accused of Doing

Wortman ran The Center for Menstrual Disorders and Reproductive Choice on South Clinton Avenue in Rochester, offering gynecological care, fertility treatments, and abortion services.² Patients who went to him for fertility help in the 1980s said they believed they were being inseminated with sperm from an anonymous medical student. Some were told Wortman planned to mix a donor’s sperm with their husband’s to improve the odds. According to the allegations, he instead substituted his own genetic material without telling them.³

By the time of his death, more than a dozen people had come forward claiming to be his biological offspring through the alleged fraud.¹ An early count identified at least 14 known siblings, 12 of them conceived through what was supposed to be donor insemination.³ Wortman’s legal team denied the allegations.⁴

How Consumer DNA Tests Unraveled the Case

The story broke open through Ancestry.com and 23andMe. David Berry, who grew up in Rochester and now lives in Miami, took an Ancestry test hoping to learn about a British grandfather. The results told him the man who raised him was not his biological father, and that his ancestry was more than 50 percent Ashkenazi Jewish. Over three years, Berry identified at least ten half-siblings sharing one biological father. In May 2021, he confirmed that father was Wortman.⁵ Berry asked Arielle Wortman, one of the doctor’s daughters from a previous marriage, to test; an analysis by DNAngels.org confirmed them as half-siblings.⁶

Berry’s findings surfaced others. Morgan Hellquist learned Wortman was both her biological father and the gynecologist who had treated her for roughly a decade.⁶ Carl “CJ” Lore II, also from Rochester, found through a DNA test that he had at least six half-siblings and that the man who raised him was not his father; his mother confirmed Wortman was.⁷ Brothers Chris and Brian Muench, part of a set of triplets, reached the same conclusion through testing.³

The Hellquist Lawsuit and the Settlement

In September 2021, Hellquist sued Wortman in Monroe County, alleging battery and emotional distress. Her central claim was that Wortman inseminated her mother with his own sperm and then treated Hellquist herself as a gynecological patient for years while knowing he was her biological father.⁵

After Wortman’s death, the case continued against his estate. In February 2025, the estate agreed to a confidential settlement with Hellquist. Payment stalled because of competing claims against the estate, but in December 2024, Monroe County Surrogate’s Court Judge Christopher Ciaccio ruled her claim valid and said the executor could pay it without waiting for the other claims to resolve.¹

Wortman’s sudden death created an evidence problem. New York State Supreme Court Justice Vincent Dinolfo ordered the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office to turn over a blood sample from Wortman’s autopsy to the county crime lab, and required Hellquist and her mother to submit DNA samples for comparison. Dinolfo stated the order was “based solely on the extraordinary and exigent circumstances warranted by the unexpected and sudden death” of Wortman and could not serve as precedent.⁸

As of early 2025, Chris and Brian Muench had signaled they might file claims against the estate but had not done so. A separate medical malpractice suit unrelated to fertility fraud could also produce a claim.¹

Why There Were No Criminal Charges

Wortman was never criminally charged. When the allegations surfaced, New York had no law making fertility fraud a crime, and legal experts said the alleged conduct did not fit the state’s existing definitions of sexual assault or battery.⁹ The Monroe County District Attorney’s Office said the statutes of limitations for any potential charges appeared to have expired.⁷

Wortman’s Death

Wortman died on May 28, 2023, at age 72, as a passenger in a homemade two-seat replica of a 1930s Wittman Buttercup sport plane. The aircraft came apart in flight over Orleans County, New York, with the wings separating from the fuselage. The pilot, 70-year-old Earl J. Luce Jr. of Brockport, who had built the plane roughly 20 years earlier, also died. The crash was investigated by the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office and the National Transportation Safety Board.¹⁰

The Push for a New York Fertility Fraud Law

The Wortman case fueled a legislative push in Albany. A bill tracked as A5046 in the 2025–2026 session would amend New York’s penal law to classify fertility fraud as aggravated sexual abuse in the fourth degree, a Class E felony. It would apply when a health care practitioner uses their own reproductive material, or material from an unauthorized donor, during an assisted reproduction procedure without the patient’s express consent.¹¹

The bill would also create a private right of action under the Public Health Law, letting patients, their spouses, and children born from the fraud sue for compensatory, punitive, and economic damages. Criminal prosecutions could begin within three years of discovery through DNA analysis or other evidence, and civil suits could be filed up to ten years after the affected child’s 18th birthday. A conviction or civil liability finding would be grounds for revoking a physician’s license.¹¹³¹²

How the Case Fits a Wider Pattern

Wortman is one of many. As of 2022, at least 50 doctors in the United States had been accused of similar conduct, with cases reaching back to the 1970s.¹³ The best-known is Indiana fertility specialist Donald Cline, linked to at least 94 biological children. Cline was never charged with sexual assault; he pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, received suspended sentences, and paid a $500 fine. His case led Indiana to become the first state to make fertility fraud a felony, in 2019.¹⁴

At least eight states have since enacted specific fertility fraud laws, with Texas treating the conduct as a form of sexual assault.¹⁵ A federal Fighting Fertility Fraud Act of 2023, which would impose prison sentences of up to ten years, was introduced but has not advanced out of committee.¹³ David Berry, who first traced the Wortman network, described the discovery as “an unconscionable violation of ethics” and told reporters, “I can’t escape because his DNA is in me.”⁴

1
Democrat and Chronicle. Wortman Estate Agrees to Settle With Woman Who Alleged Fertility Fraud
2
CNN. Fertility Doctor Morris Wortman Dies in Plane Crash
3
Democrat and Chronicle. Brothers Suspect They Are Offspring of Fertility Doctor Morris Wortman
4
ABC News. Man and Woman Describe Learning They Are Half-Siblings in Alleged Fertility Fraud
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The New York Times. Fertility Doctors Fraud Rochester
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The Irish Times. His Biological Father Turned Out to Be His Mother’s Fertility Doctor
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13WHAM. Man Says OB-GYN Accused of Artificially Inseminating Women With Own Sperm Is His Father
8
Democrat and Chronicle. Morris Wortman DNA Samples From Autopsy Could Be Tested as Part of Fertility Fraud Lawsuit
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ABC 7 News. Fertility Fraud Dr. Morris Wortman DNA Test Rochester NY
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WXXI News. Prominent Doctor, Aviation Expert Die in Weekend Plane Crash
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New York State Senate. A5046
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Rochester First. More Accuse Local Doctor of Fertility Fraud
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Forbes. Doctors Impregnating Patients: Major Cases Allege Fertility Fraud
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Time. Our Father True Story
15
The New York Times. Sperm Donors Fraud Doctors