U.S. District Court Denies Stay for Convicted Doctors

A U.S. District Court judge yesterday denied the appeal of two doctors formerly employed at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) for an emergency stay of the unusual six-month sentence they received for raping a nurse.

Police are still seeking a third BWH doctor convicted in the case. Officials fear the doctor may have left the country to avoid serving out his sentence.

Attorneys for the two doctors--Arif Hussain and Alan Lefkowitz--filed an appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the next highest court, shortly after the emergency stay was denied.

Suffolk County Superior Court Justice Walter I Steele originally sentenced Hussain. Lefkowitz and Sherry to three to five years in Walpole State Prison, with all but six months of the sentence suspended. He stayed the sentences until an appeal was heard in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

The state's high court unanimously upheld the doctor's convictions eight days ago, and Suffolk Justice James P. McGuire revoked the stays on their sentences Wednesday and ordered Hussain and Lefkowitz to begin serving time at Walpole.

If the federal appeals court fails to grant a stay, the only other option available to the doctors is to appeal to a single justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas Troy, one of the doctors attorneys, said yesterday he has already begun drafting an appeal to be presented to the justice.

District Court Judge A David Mazzone '50 rejected the appeal for an emergency stay because defense attorneys failed to demonstrate a clear miscarriage of justice of exceptional circumstances necessary to prevent Hussain and Lefkowtz from beginning the sentences they received in June 1981 for raping a BWH nurse at a beach house in Rockport, Mass.

Defense attorney had argued that unless the federal court granted relief the doctors would serve out their entire sentences before the normal appeals process could exonerate them.

Officials are meanwhile pursuing Dr Eugene Sherry, the third defendant whose family lives in New Zealand Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Michael Taft said yesterday that probation officers are holding the doctor's passport adding that an extradition treaty between the United States and New Zealand could be used to return Sherry to Boston if he flees here.

Sherry did not appear at McGuire's hearing. The doctor, who lives in New York, sent a telegram to the court probation officer stating he could not attend the hearing because of illness. McGuire ordered his arrest during the hearing.

All three doctors were staff members at BWH before the highly publicized trial began last year. The doctors and the nurse were attending a party at the apartment of another BWH staff member the night of the incident. According to court testimony, the doctors carried the victim to a car and drove to Letkowitz's North Shore cottage where they raped her.