Warning: This story contains details on sexual abuse allegations, including charges of crimes involving children. If you or someone you know may be a victim of sexual abuse, confidential support, information and advice are available at theNational Sexual Assault Hotlineby calling 800-656-4673. Text chat is also available online.

Five years ago, four women came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by West Linn doctor David Farley. More than 150 women and girls would follow.

On Friday, the longtime family physician was arraigned in Clackamas County Circuit Court on a raft of felony charges.

Farley, 67, appeared virtually from Clackamas County jail after turning himself in earlier that day.

The former doctor faces 11 felony charges for his conduct with three former patients. They include four counts of first-degree sex abuse, five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, one count of first-degree sexual penetration and one count of second-degree sexual penetration.

Police records shed light on investigation of former West Linn doctor accused of rampant sexual abuse

The Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to say whether more charges would come.

Through his attorney, Jacob Houze, Farley pled not guilty. Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Ann Lininger set bail at $500,000.

“Survivors and their families have shown remarkable courage throughout this process,” Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a press release. “This indictment reflects our commitment to justice. Our focus now — and always — is on the people whose lives were upended by this abuse.”

Oregon DOJ’s involvement

For more than three decades, Farley practiced medicine in Clackamas County at Providence’s Willamette Falls Medical Center, Legacy’s Meridian Park Hospital and at his own practice, the West Linn Family Health Clinic. These institutions and Farley are named in a nearly $1 billion lawsuit brought by 180 of his former patients.

The doctor was also a prominent leader in the local Mormon church, where he allegedly met many of the patients who would later claim he abused them.

Farley abruptly retired in August of 2020 and moved to Idaho. That same month, he surrendered his medical license to the Oregon Medical Board, after the board found he engaged in sexual misconduct and took photos of the breasts and genitals of underage patients.

Later that fall, four women went to the West Linn Police Department and reported Farley sexually abused them by masking his illegal and invasive conduct as legitimate medical care.

In the months that followed, they would be joined by more than 150 other women and girls who reported they were sexually abused by Farley.

And yet, when the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office convened a grand jury in 2022 hoping to bring charges against Farley, they came away with nothing.

After the case, the patients widely criticized both the police and prosecutors who handled the investigation, saying the officers were incompetent and the prosecutors were dismissive of their stories.

For two years, Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth staunchly defended his office’s handling of the case, even suggesting in an op-ed in a local newspaper that the victims had lied by calling it a botched investigation.

Wentworth, and leaders at the West Linn Police Department, claimed they were hamstrung by Oregon law because it allows doctors to perform actions that would otherwise be considered sexual abuse, if they occur in a medical setting.

Subpoena fight brings Mormon Church into West Linn doctor sex abuse case

Farley’s patients and their attorneys strongly pushed back on that claim, saying there was plenty of room within the law to secure charges.

In December 2024, Wentworth changed his tune and asked then-Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum to open a state-run criminal investigation of Farley.

Rosenblum’s office had been looking into the matter since 2022 when dozens of the victims asked her to take it on in the wake of the criminal case’s failure at the local level. Prosecutors under Attorney General Dan Rayfield continued that work when he took office in 2025.

Friday’s charges

The 11 charges against Farley stem from his alleged actions with three patients. According to the indictment, Farley faces four counts for his conduct with one of these patients that occurred in 2016.

The indictment also alleges Farley committed one act of second-degree unlawful sexual penetration and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse against a girl under the age of 14 in 2009. Farley then sexually abused that patient again in 2011, according to prosecutors.

The indictment alleges Farley then committed three acts of second-degree sexual abuse against a third patient on three separate occassions between 2019 and 2020.

Friday’s charges lend credence to what the former patients have said all along: The police and prosecutors involved in the initial criminal case failed in their mission to bring Farley to justice.

“When I was assaulted, I thought I was alone, I thought I had misread things,” Katie Medley, one of the first to report abuse by Farley to police five years ago, said in a press release provided by the patients’ attorneys.

“My faith in our justice system was tried over the years. But my sister survivors and I never stopped speaking out and now we have been vindicated.”

Initial prosecution failed

In the wake of a grand jury declining to bring charges against Farley during the initial criminal proceedings in 2022, the patients expressed a litany of concerns with how the case was handled by both the West Linn Police Department and the Clackamas County District Attorney’s office.

A large share of their criticisms were aimed at West Linn’s detective leading the case, Tony Christensen, and Deputy District Attorney Sarah Dumont.

In their letter to Rosenblum, testimony before the West Linn City Council and interviews with the media, the victims described Christensen as incompetent, demeaning and lacking any understanding of female anatomy.

Text messages obtained by OPB through a public records request indicate the DA’s office knew Christensen was a “dumb” and “non empathetic” detective.

In a thread of messages between Jill Chapman, an investigator for the DA’s office and Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Case, Chapman called the detective “stupid Christensen” and a “dumb dumb,” to which Case replies “yes very dumb.”

Chapman then wrote, “and also just a mean non empathetic person which is why I’m being so mean and non empathetic about him #hellopotthisiskettle.”

Case wrote back “Ha ha.”

Christensen retired from WLPD in 2023, just as an investigation unfolded into how he and the department handled the Farley case.

That investigation, conducted by an independent workplace investigator hired by the city of West Linn, came out in early 2024. It largely supported the claims of victims who criticized the department.

The investigative report outlined critical faults in the West Linn police investigation, including omission of information in police reports, missing case files and recordings of interviews with alleged victims, failure to obtain Farley’s phone despite credible reason to believe it contained photos of children’s breasts and genitals, and failure to provide a victim advocate to women reporting abuse, as required by state law and WLPD’s own policies.

The report also covers Christensen’s lack of training in sexual abuse and forensic investigating.

While Wentworth said his office’s handling of the case was sound despite these concerns with the police investigation, the prosecutors never faced the same level of independent scrutiny as the investigation of WLPD, which focused only on the police department.

Key state witness did not appear before grand jury that declined to charge West Linn doctor accused of sexual abuse

'A very long road’

Following Friday’s arraignment, the victims and their attorneys seemed to have their sights set forward.

“This has been a very long road,” Lisa Pratt, another of the first survivors to come forward said. “The Attorneys General and their team were kind, caring and thorough. Their hard work got this dangerous predator off the streets.”

The lawyers for Farley’s patients also praised the work of Rosenblum and Rayfield.

“Today, the survivors of horrific sexual abuse by their disgraced former doctor David Farley had their day in Criminal Court. Their five-year fight to hold Farley accountable is nothing short of heroic,” attorneys Courtney Thom and Tom D’Amore said in a joint statement. “We look forward to seeing Farley brought to trial and punished for his horrendous crimes.”

Rayfield’s press release said his office would continue to work closely with Wentworth’s office.

“The former patients had developed trust with the DOJ and placed their confidence in its review,” Wentworth said in the release. “I have dedicated my entire career to victim advocacy and the pursuit of justice.”

Lininger ruled that if Farley posts bail — he would need to put forward $50,000 — he would be subject to intense supervision.

Lininger also stated that Farley is not allowed to contact the three victims from the charges, but did not require the same restriction for the 180 other women and girls who have accused him of sexual abuse in the civil lawsuit.

Farley’s next court date is set for Nov. 5, with trial set to begin Dec. 3.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/10/david-farley-west-linn-sexual-abuse-allegations/