Las Vegas Review-Journal asks to unseal doctor’s sex crime records

In an effort to determine why the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners allowed a doctor accused of a sex crime to continue practicing, the Las Vegas Review-Journal filed court papers Friday, asking a judge to unseal records from a 2006 criminal case.

Las Vegas Dr. Binh Minh Chung, a 41-year-old family practitioner, faces 10 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of using a minor for the production of pornography. Authorities said he videotaped himself having sex with a sedated, underage girl in his office.

Nine years ago, Chung faced two counts of open and gross lewdness, but the charges were dismissed and records were sealed and later removed from court files. The medical board was aware of the charges at the time and filed a letter of concern, but Chung’s license was never suspended.

In a motion filed Friday afternoon, the newspaper’s lawyer, Maggie McLetchie, asked a judge to unseal the records from the 2006 case.

“The very nature of the problem is reflected by the Kafka-esque situation in which the public now finds itself,” McLetchie wrote. “Not only have the records themselves somehow been purged and hidden from public view, there is no record of what type of records were sealed, how and why the records were sealed, when they were sealed, or where the records are now.”

A hearing on the motion has been set for Wednesday.

The medical board suspended Chung’s license Tuesday, after the new accusations came to light.

The current investigation started when Dr. Binh Minh Chung’s wife got suspicious and snooped through her husband’s text messages and computers, according to an arrest report released Wednesday. The wife found several videos of her husband having sex with other women and the underage girl.

The girl, along with Chung’s wife, contacted police on June 4, according to the arrest report.

Chung is represented by attorney Christopher Oram, who has declined to comment on the cases involving the doctor.

Las Vegas Justice Court online records indicate that two separate judges dismissed the 2006 charges, but there’s no indication why or whether there was a conviction.

Las Vegas police records indicate the accusations stemmed from a May 8, 2005, incident. The case was sent to District Court in September 2006. But from there, all records of the case, including the arrest report and outcome of the case, were sealed.

There’s also no record that anyone asked to have the record sealed.

The state medical board also filed a complaint against Chung, which ended without a public reprimand, medical board Executive Director Edward Cousineau said Thursday.

In 2009, the medical board put a “letter of concern” in Chung’s file, an administrator said earlier this week.

Nevada law allows a person to have records of conviction sealed after a certain length of time, but not in cases involving a sex crime.

“The court’s cloaking of the records and the opacity of the sealing process are at odds with the presumption in favor of public access to court records,” McLetchie wrote. “The nature of this case reflects the inherent problems with sealing court records without sufficient cause, and especially with the practice of obscuring the very process of sealing records itself from public view. The court should correct its prior error and apparent over-exuberance regarding hiding facts from the public.”

While all stages of court proceedings in Nevada are supposed to be open to the public, sealing court records in Las Vegas was not uncommon when Chung’s 2006 case file vanished.

Review-Journal Editor Mike Hengel pointed to the newspaper’s 2007 investigation that found more than 100 cases in a seven-year span where judges ordered lawsuits hidden from public view.

The litigants involved included doctors, medical service providers, executives, politicians and lawyers — mostly people wealthy and influential in business, politics or the courts, the newspaper found.

“We know from a previous Review-Journal investigation that Nevada judges were too happy to seal cases involving physicians or anyone else of means who argued that disclosure could damage their reputations and their careers,” Hengel said. “The courts are no place for secrecy, which erodes the integrity of the system and the public’s confidence in it. With the most recent allegations against Dr. Chung, the public has every reason to ask how the previous, similar allegations were handled by the court and why the case was closed to public scrutiny.”

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker