Troubled New Jersey abortion clinics to be sold
New Jersey prosecutors say Steven Brigham defied an order to cut ties with his abortion clinics after he lost his medical license. Now, he may be cut out.
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The 82-year-old, physically and mentally impaired physician who has headed a chain of abortion clinics in New Jersey has agreed to sell the facilities as part of the revocation of his medical license.
Vikram Kaji lost his license in January when an administrative judge declared him incompetent to practice medicine because of his stroke-related disabilities.
Kaji’s agreement with the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, issued as a consent order Wednesday, also may enable regulators to remove the founder of the seven clinics, Steven C. Brigham, 62.
More than four years ago, the board ordered Brigham to divest his interests in the clinics when it took away his medical license — the last of six he once held — for illegally performing dangerous late-term abortions. Instead, Brigham transferred ownership for no money to medical director Kaji, who then hired Brigham to manage the clinics.
The state attorney general alleged the transfer was a sham designed to keep Brigham in control and profiting from the business.
Kaji’s agreement requires that he sell the clinics to a licensed physician within 60 days, then submit to the board “copies of the contract of sale and any management contract.”
Joseph Gorrell, the lawyer representing Kaji and Brigham, declined to comment.
The seven New Jersey clinics are part of Brigham’s multistate, Voorhees-based abortion network, advertised as American Women’s Services.
Public records and media reports going back to the early 1990s — when Brigham launched his abortion practice in Wyomissing, Pa. — have documented his history of trouble with regulators, tax collectors, landlords, creditors, and criminal prosecutors in Maryland.
He has testified that he is in financial straits. He owed almost $500,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for not paying employee taxes when he lost his New Jersey license. He has yet to pay any of the $561,000 in penalties and prosecution costs that the state imposed in connection with the revocation of his medical license.