BANGOR – Organizers say a conference for teachers will take place as planned, despite a pending Massachusetts lawsuit against the keynote speaker. Dr. Melvin D. Levine, a renowned pediatrician, educator and author, is the target of a civil suit alleging he sexually abused several young male patients in his care.

Levine, 68, is to be the featured presenter at an April 30 conference for educators, to take place at the Spectacular Event Center in Bangor. The conference was organized by Dirigo Educational Conferences of Ellsworth.

The Maine Principals’ Association has canceled plans to feature the respected expert on child development, behavior and learning at its spring conference.

Levine, who served from 1971 to 1985 as the chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is accused in the lawsuit of sexually molesting at least seven young patients during that time. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of one unnamed plaintiff on March 31 in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston. According to media reports, additional lawsuits and complaints against Levine have been filed in the past, also alleging sexual abuse of patients.

Criminal charges apparently cannot be brought because too much time has elapsed since the date of the alleged abuse.

Organizer Robert Miller, co-founder of Dirigo Educational Conferences, said Friday that he has no intention of canceling Levine’s appearance in Bangor.

“I feel really strongly about the justice system in the United States, and that’s where this should be tried,” he said.

In a “letter to participants” posted on the organization’s Web site, Miller indicates the conference planners are aware of the lawsuit and that the event will go forward regardless.

The letter offers those who have registered for the conference the opportunity to withdraw.

Miller said only “a few” people had withdrawn.

A manager at Spectacular Event Center in Bangor said Thursday that about 170 people had registered for the April 30 event.

The lawsuit filed March 31 alleges that the plaintiff was “sexually assaulted, battered and abused” by the doctor between 1980 and 1985, according to a staff-written news story posted that day on the Web site of The Boston Globe.

While living in the Boston area, Levine served as an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. The Harvard Crimson reported on April 2 that three separate lawsuits against Levine for sexual abuse of patients during his tenure at Children’s Hospital have been filed in the past three years, and that the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine in 1993 received a complaint from a patient alleging unprofessional conduct, sexual misconduct and patient abuse. The complaint was “closed with no further action” in 1995, according to the Crimson.

Levine, who now lives in North Carolina and is an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School in Chapel Hill, has voluntarily stopped seeing patients since the Massachusetts lawsuit was filed, according to an April 4 story in The Boston Globe. The story quotes a Raleigh lawyer as saying she has received “multiple phone calls” from North Carolina residents claiming Levine has abused them.

A call placed to Levine’s home in North Carolina this week was not returned.

Levine’s Boston attorney, Edward Mahoney, said in a statement issued earlier this month that his client is cooperating fully with the North Carolina Medical Board in its investigation into the allegations against him.

“His voluntary transfer to inactive status is in no way an acknowledgement of any wrongdoing or improper conduct,” Mahoney wrote. “Dr. Levine adamantly denies that he has ever been abusive in any way to any patient. … Dr. Levine is distressed about the distorted or misinterpreted memories from decades past and questions the motivations” of the plaintiffs,Mahoney said.

Levine was scheduled to speak at the spring conference of the Maine Principals Association on May 1. Executive director Dick Durost said Friday that he canceled the doctor’s appearance after reading about the latest lawsuit.

Durost said he believes strongly in the tenet of “innocent until proven guilty” but that the multiple allegations against Levine and the fact that the doctor has stopped seeing patients in North Carolina were enough to convince him to find another speaker.

Dr. Donald Burgess, a Kennebunk pediatrician and president of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Thursday that Levine is well-known and respected for his professional work.

“Most of us have used his ideas in handling kids with learning disabilities,” he said. Burgess said that in 1996, he spent a week in Chapel Hill at an educational conference hosted by Levine, describing the event as inspirational and informative.

Burgess said his regard for Levine’s contributions to medicine and education would not be diminished by reports of sexual misconduct with patients, but that it would be “tragic” if it were determined they are true.

Burgess cautioned that false accusations are often filed against physicians.

“Anyone who works with children is especially at risk,” he said. The multiple complaints over several years make the case look serious, he said, but “sometimes, people are exonerated.”

The author of numerous books on learning disorders for adults and children, Levine is also the co-founder of All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the study of learning disorders and learning differences. His 2002 book, “A Mind at a Time,” was a New York Times best-seller.

mhaskell@bangordailynews.net

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