Fertility Doctor Secretly Used His Own Sperm, Lawsuit Alleges

IDAHO FALLS, ID — Like millions of others who have ordered DNA tests from a popular genealogy website, Kelli Rowlette was curious about her family tree. But she was floored by a web of deception revealed by the test: The man she had believed to be her biological father for 36 years wasn’t a genetic match. Instead, her parents’ fertility doctor was her likely father.

Rowlette, who knew nothing of her parents' struggle to conceive her, initially thought the results from the Ancestry.com test were wrong. But when she questioned her now divorced parents, Sally Ashby and Howard Fowler, about the mysterious probable genetic match, Gerald Mortimer, they knew him quite well.

He had delivered Kelli Rowlette. When the family moved away, he "cried." But what no one knew until the DNA test was the secret now spelled out a federal malpractice lawsuit Rowlette and her parents filed in Idaho last week against Mortimer. In it, they accuse the retired gynecologist and obstetrician living in Idaho Falls of “knowingly” using his own sperm in 1980 to impregnate Sally Ashby.

According to the complaint, Mortimer explained to the couple the reasons for their difficulty in conceiving were twofold: She had a tipped uterus and he had a low sperm count. Mortimer prescribed artificial insemination, and said Fowler’s sperm would be mixed with the sperm of a suitable donor who matched their specifications — a college student taller than 6 feet with brown hair and blue eyes.

Instead, though he did not match the parents’ specifications for a sperm donor, he used his own sperm in the procedure that resulted in Rowlette’s birth nine months later, according to the complaint.

After Mortimer delivered Rowlette, he continued to provide reproductive care for her mother, who later naturally conceived a son with Fowler without Mortimer’s assistance. When he became emotional at the prospect of the family's move from Idaho to Washington, “Dr. Mortimer knew Kelli Rowlette was his biological daughter but did not disclose this to Ms. Ashby or Mr. Fowler,” the complaint states.’

Though the secret lay dormant for more than 30 years, Rowlette’s parents were “devastated” when they learned Mortimer was their daughter’s biological father, the complaint states, and “struggled to cope with their own anguish and had difficulty contemplating the torment the discovery” would cause their daughter.

Rowlette and her family have been “suffering immeasurably” since the discovery, according to the lawsuit.

Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls and Mortimer’s wife, Linda G. McKinnon Mortimer, are also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The family is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.

Patch was unsuccessful in attempts to reach Mortimer for a comment. A spokeswoman for Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls said he is no longer associated with the practice.

“None of the health care providers currently at Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls were part of the practice in 1979 to 1980 and they diligently strive to provide care to their patients that is in compliance with the standards of health care practice,” the spokeswoman said, reading from a prepared statement.

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