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A New York doctor, who had been accused of using his own sperm to make multiple patients pregnant, died in a tragic plane accident.
According to NBC News, Dr. Morris Wortman, 72, was a passenger when the plane disintegrated mid-flight Sunday in a pasture in Orleans County. The pilot, Earl Luce Jr., also died in the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and examining the plane, identified as a Wittman W-5 Buttercup.
“The wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground in an orchard,” Orleans County Sheriff Christopher Bourke said, based on preliminary findings.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Wortman was surrounded by controversy after plaintiff Morgan Helquist sued him for medical malpractice in 2021. The lawsuit indicated that Wortman inseminated Hellquist’s mother two to three times a month from late 1983 through January 1985.
Hellquist was eight when she learned she was conceived via insemination. In 2016, a year after her dad’s death, she discovered through genetic testing that she was half-Ashkenazi Jewish, which led her to Wortman.
Over the next few years, Hellquist reportedly made contact with six other people who Wortman may have fathered.
USA Today reports that brothers Chris and Brian Muench said they, too, were likely conceived by Wortman, along with 14 other siblings. According to the lawsuit, Wortman never told the patients, in any of the cases of women interviewed, that he would be using his own sperm.
Check back for updates.
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[Featured image: Morris Wortman/YouTube]
