A longtime Catonsville doctor who got a Maryland medical license despite a 1987 rape conviction – and whose case inspired a state law requiring physicians get background checks – has settled a lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted a female patient.
The West Virginia woman reached a confidential settlement with William Dando and MedExpress Urgent Care, her lawyer, Seth D'Atri said. She said in a complaint filed in July 2014 that Dando fondled her when she visited a MedExpress center near Cumberland for treatment of a back injury.
Bradford Roegge, a lawyer for Dando, confirmed that the doctor was a party to the settlement but declined to comment further. A spokeswoman for MedExpress could not be immediately reached.
The woman was the third to allege that Dando touched her improperly at the urgent care center. Dando was indicted in May 2014 based on a woman's allegations that he inappropriately touched her during an unchaperoned pelvic examination. Those charges were dropped a day before Dando was to stand trial, after he agreed to give up his medical license.
Dando received a Maryland medical license in 1996 and operated a family practice on Frederick Road in Catonsville for more than a decade until he joined MedExpress in 2013.
He was licensed despite being convicted of following a woman home and raping her at gunpoint in Florida in 1987. State health regulators were not aware of the conviction until The Baltimore Sun reported it in a story about Dando's sexual assault charges in Western Maryland.
The General Assembly passed a law this year requiring doctors be fingerprinted and subjected to continuous criminal background monitoring. The law takes effect July 1.
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