State Lets Psychiatrist David Ford Wilson Practice Again--Except on Anyone under Age 18

November 12, 2018

A Utah child psychiatrist who once faced accusations that he had viewed child pornography at work will be able to practice medicine again — but with restrictions.

The state’s licensing authority initially denied David Ford Wilson’s request to reactivate his license, according to a stipulation and order, because he had admitted during the application process last year that he had looked at “preteen modeling sites” while working at Ogden’s McKay-Dee Hospital.

Wilson had his license pulled by the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) in 2013, after prosecutors charged him with more than a dozen felonies when child pornography was found cached in the hard drive of his work computer.

But a judge dismissed the charges three years later, finding prosecutors did not produce “believable evidence” Wilson had intentionally viewed the images.

A computer forensics expert testified in 2016 that the illegal images were stored in “unallocated space” — meaning they weren’t saved under any file name and there was no record of how long they had been on the computer, who was on the computer when they were created, or whether they had ever actually been viewed by the computer’s user.

In an emergency order in 2013, DOPL officials wrote that Wilson had entered a number of questionable search terms into his work computer, including “hot preteen models” and “shameless preteens.” Licensing officials felt his actions “posed an immediate threat to public safety,” so they suspended his license in an emergency order.

Wilson applied to get his license back last year, and when DOPL officials initially denied his request, he filed a court case asking a judge to review the decision. In court filings, Wilson denied accessing child porn — but admitted he looked at preteen modeling sites at work and had undergone counseling.

State officials ultimately settled the case in late October, agreeing to let Wilson practice again. But he will be on probation for five years, according to a written stipulation, and will be banned from treating anyone under the age of 18. He must also work under a supervisor who will provide reports about him to DOPL, have a designated member of the staff who will review his search history and install filtering software that will keep out inappropriate images from his work and home computers, among other restrictions.

Source: “A Utah psychiatrist who admitted to looking at ‘preteen modeling sites’ will get his license back,” The Salt Lake Tribune, November 12, 2018, URL: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/11/12/utah-psychiatrist-who/