Doctor Guilty of Murder in Botched Abortion

NEW YORK —  A doctor whose botched abortion caused a patient to bleed to death was convicted of murder Tuesday in a rare instance of criminal charges filed over a medical mistake.

A jury took just three hours to convict Dr. David Benjamin in the death of Guadalupe Negron, a 33-year-old mother of four. The jurors rejected lesser charges of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.

Benjamin, 58, who was appealing a license revocation for incompetence at the time of the abortion, sat without emotion as the verdict was returned. He faces 25 years to life in prison at sentencing Sept. 12. His lawyer said he will appeal.

Prosecutors charged that Benjamin left a three-inch rip in Negron’s uterus and left her to die on an operating table covered in blood and vomit.

Benjamin also was accused of lying to the two paramedics who arrived on the scene. The district attorney said the cover-up was one reason for pressing charges.

Defense attorney Brad Leventhal acknowledged that Benjamin erred during the abortion but said he did everything he could to save Negron. The defense claimed she caused the tear by sitting up during the abortion.

Benjamin testified he thought Negron was about 13 weeks pregnant and didn’t realize until midway through the abortion that she was 20 weeks along.

Benjamin’s receptionist, however, testified that the doctor knew when Negron made the appointment that she was five months pregnant and that he ignored the woman for more than an hour after the abortion.

Lawyers for Negron’s family told the court she paid Benjamin $800 for an abortion because she needed to go to work to help support her children, three of whom lived in Honduras.

One month before Negron’s death, the state had revoked Benjamin’s license for gross incompetence and negligence for abortions performed on five women in 1990.