A Delaware County chiropractor sexually assaulted his clients. Now he is going to jail.
Seven women said Ardel Cirio groped them during chiropractic adjustments between 2020 and 2021.
A Springfield chiropractor was sentenced to 10 to 23 months in jail Wednesday after entering a no-contest plea to sexually assaulting seven of his clients.
Ardel Cirio, 63, must also surrender his license under the terms of the negotiated plea, accepted during a hearing before Delaware County Judge Mary Alice Brennan.
Cirio pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated indecent assault and seven counts of indecent assault without consent. The assaults took place between December 2020 and March 2021.
By pleading no contest, Cirio did not admit guilt but did not dispute the facts presented by prosecutors.
His attorney, Arthur Donato, said he was satisfied with the resolution, which came after close consultation with all the parties involved.
Investigators learned of the assaults in March 2021, when two women made reports to Newtown Township police, according to court documents. Other victims gradually came forward, all with similar stories of abuse, after the initial charges were made public.
» READ MORE: From 2021: "Delaware County chiropractor charged with sexually assaulting 5 patients"
In interviews by police, the seven women described chiropractic sessions with Cirio that they said left them paralyzed with fear as he groped their breasts and, in one case, digitally penetrated a woman’s vagina.
At Cirio’s preliminary hearing in May 2021, one woman said she felt “frozen on the table” during one incident. She didn’t immediately report it, she said, because she had been his patient for three years and trusted him.
“I didn’t want to believe what I felt,” the woman said. “I knew something was off and I didn’t want it to be true, because I considered him and his wife my friends.”
Other longtime patients said Cirio had always made chiropractic adjustments over their clothing but suddenly began to reach underneath their clothing or asked them to remove it entirely in sessions that quickly turned disturbing as they said he groped them and kissed or licked their breasts.