McALLEN — On Monday, a McAllen gynecologist currently suspended by the Texas Medical Board in connection with accusations of sexual assaults patients and employees, was booked into county jail on one count of indecent assault.
Dr. Jimmi Rios-Perez, a listed obstetrician and gynecologist for the “Dr. Rios Women’s Health,” office in McAllen, was booked and released Monday after posting a $5,000 personal recognizance bond, county records show.
The 49-year-old McAllen man was charged with indecent assault, a Class A misdemeanor that has a penalty range of up to a year in county jail.
But in a letter drafted by Rios-Perez’s legal counsel, the doctor “vigorously” denies the allegations made against him and “believes strongly he will be exonerated of all charges,” the letter stated.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Rios-Perez, a woman reported to police in March that Rios-Perez inappropriately touched her during two follow-up examinations related to late 2019 cosmetic surgeries.
The complaint does not identify the woman; instead, it refers to her using a pseudonym to protect her identity.
“On January 13, 2020 (pseudonym) went for a follow up visit where Dr. Rios Perez touched her vagina without her consent while performing the examination. On January 20, 2020 (pseudonym) went for her last follow up visit where Dr. Rios Perez again touched her vagina along with her anus without her consent,” the document stated. (Pseudonym) stated she had no procedure done on her vagina or anus that would warrant Dr. Rios Perez touching her in those areas.”
The woman told police the doctor did not wear gloves during these incidents, and did not have a chaperone in the room present, according to the complaint.
In the letter, the doctor denies this; stating the chaperone was present, signed the patient’s medical chart, and “scanned the record into the system at the same time.”
On April 15, police obtained the woman’s medical records through Rios-Perez’s attorney.
“(McAllen investigators) reviewed the medical records and found no documentation relating to any procedures done in the anus or vagina of (pseudonym). Based on these records, Dr. Rios Perez did not have a medical reason to check or touch (pseudonym’s) anus or vagina without her consent,” the complaint stated.
The formal charge against the doctor is the first since his suspension April 2 as a result of what the Texas Medical Board stated was multiple allegations against the doctor from at least five women; three patients, and two employees, who claimed the doctor either sexually assaulted them, or touched them inappropriately.
“The Board panel found that Dr. Rios-Perez is the subject of several criminal complaints made to the McAllen Police Department by three patients and two employees alleging inappropriate conduct and sexual assault,” the board stated in the release. “Additionally, the panel found that Dr. Rios-Perez violated his (August) 2018 Agreed Order requiring him to have a chaperone present during the examination of a patient.”
That order, which Rios-Perez entered into with the Board on Aug. 24, 2018, came about after the board discovered Rios-Perez “inappropriately conducted a physical examination of (a) patient while discussing an ongoing business relationship between the two, violating physician-patient boundaries standards,” during a postoperative visit for a cosmetic patient, according a board news release from September 2018.
Allegations of improper behavior against Rios-Perez stretch back to at least the fall of 2015, when a woman filed a complaint with McAllen police after a scheduled visit at Rios-Perez’s “Women’s Health Clinic,” in McAllen.
The woman claimed after her medical examination with the gynecologist, he called her into his office and touched her in a manner that made her feel uncomfortable.
According to the complaint filed, the woman claimed Rios-Perez told her to stand next to him behind his desk, where he proceeded to touch her buttocks, and then her genitals under the guise that he was continuing the examination from moments earlier.
At one point, a female nurse barged into the office to advise the doctor of a phone call and quickly shut the door, but Rios-Perez continued to touch the woman, the complaint stated.
The woman said that during the act, she felt “frozen” and “stuck,” because she did not know what to do or how to interpret the doctor’s actions.
Eventually, the woman failed to show up for the follow-up interview with police officers, and the case was classified as inactive.
That complaint would be followed by another one in May 2017, when a woman claimed Dr. Rios-Perez sexually assaulted her. A month later, the documents obtained from McAllen police state the investigation was closed after the district attorney’s office declined to forward the case to a grand jury for lack of evidence.
Another filed complaint, this one in December 2018, remains open after a woman claimed Rios-Perez touched her inappropriately.
There was a complaint filed, now listed as inactive, in early November 2019, after the woman, who worked at Rios-Perez’s clinic, said he had touched her genitals on three consecutive days in late September under the guise of performing a “consultation” on her.
“(The woman) stated she thought her consultations was (sic) normal until she saw Jimmi doing consultations and they were not like hers,” the complaint stated. “(The woman) stated later on that day Jimmi invited her to his ranch to perform a surgery on her, (the woman) stated she told him no.”
The last two incidents, filed in November 2019 and January 2020, respectively, state Rios-Perez allegedly sexually assaulted a woman, and in the other incident, he allegedly inappropriately touched a woman who was in his office.
On April 15, when Rios-Perez’s attorney provided police with the woman’s medical records, he told police the doctor would not be providing police with a statement related to the accusations, the complaint stated.
