Former Antioch chiropractor pleads to druggings, sex assault

Published: 2009-10-11 22:58:23
Author: Malaika Fraley | Contra Costa Times | September 30, 2009

MARTINEZ — A former Antioch chiropractor pleaded no contest today to charges he drugged two women at a bar and then sexually assaulted one of them at his doctor's office while she was unconscious — an assault authorities say he videotaped on his cell phone and showed to others back at the bar.

Jason Phillip Goettsch, 38, faces four years in prison under a plea deal submitted in a Martinez courtroom Wednesday afternoon. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 8 on one count each of oral copulation on a drugged person, administrating drugs with intent to commit a sexual assault and furnishing GHB, known as a "date rape drug."

Defense attorney Dirk Manoukian said Goettsch does not admit to guilt, and accepted the plea deal in light of the maximum 18-year prison sentence he would have faced had he been convicted at trial. Manoukian argued at a preliminary hearing that the sexual activity was consensual.

Prosecutor Andrea Tavenier said the cell phone video recording of the passed-out woman speaks for itself. The victims are relieved that they won't have to testify at trial, and satisfied that Goettsch is headed to prison and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, Tavenier said.

"What he did was absolutely reprehensible," she said. "He should, in my opinion, be in prison for the rest of his life."

The state stripped Goettsch of his chiropractor's license last year when police announced a warrant for his arrest in connection with the Feb. 21, 2008, druggings and sexual assault.

The victims, cousins in their late 20s, had gone shopping for a wedding dress that day and then went to the 19th Hole bar in Antioch, where they ran into Goettsch, whom one of them knew through his chiropractor's practice.

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