Update: Charge dismissed against SC doctor accused of sexual assault

Update: The charge of sexual battery on a woman was dismissed on July 23, 2018, according to paperwork from the 15th Judicial Circuit.

A South Carolina doctor is accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met outside of Grand Strand Medical Center where he was working.

The Conway doctor is accused of committing sexual battery on a woman, who was a patient at the hospital when they first met, according to a police report.

The 41-year-old woman told police a man named “Alex,” dressed in blue scrubs, chatted with her outside of the hospital and somehow obtained her phone number because she started to receive text messages and calls from a blocked number in the days that followed, according to the report.

The victim told police the man picked her up from the hospital, took her to his home, gave her Valium and an alcoholic beverage and then sexually assaulted her, according to the report.

The victim said she trusted him because he worked at the hospital and wanted to help her, the report stated.

A redacted warrant for the man’s arrest states he used information to establish contact with the victim whom he knew suffered from substance abuse through a conversation with her. Police say the man “did provide the victim with prescription medication and alcohol under the guise of providing treatment in order to change her mental and physical state and then using those altered states to initiate sexual intercourse,” the warrant states.

The man was arrested Wednesday and is charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

In a statement from Grand Strand Medical Center, hospital officials said they suspended the doctor after learning of his “arrest related to allegations of misconduct that occurred off our campus.”

The man is being held at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center under a $20,000 bail.

This story was originally published November 3, 2016 at 8:03 AM.