The doctor doesn’t deny getting the 32-year-old patient’s number from her chart in 2018 and texting with her socially, according to an accusation filed against Sergio Vittorio Sapetto on Dec. 8, 2021 by the California Medical Board. At the time he was working for The Permanente Medical Group in Redwood City as a primary care physician. The board’s accusation alleges the texting led to an inappropriate sexual relationship with the patient.
Sapetto was terminated by Permanente in 2020, and now works for a Pinnacle HealthCare urgent care clinic in Soledad.
“We have a very different story to tell,” says Sapetto’s civil attorney, Marc Brainich. He calls the Medical Board’s accusation “not an objective statement of the facts they found. It’s not a balanced portrait of what occurred,” Brainich says.
At some point Sapetto will have a hearing before the Medical Board during which he can make a case for why he should not be disciplined for three alleged causes: sexual misconduct with a patient; gross negligence; and falsification of records for one contested entry in her chart.
If the board rules he should be disciplined, that could include probation or revoking his license, as well as reimbursing the state’s costs of the investigation and enforcement.
The accusation states that Sapetto acknowledged to investigators he kept a folding bed under his office desk for the purpose of having sex with the woman, whom he continued to treat. The report also states there are text messages indicating they met at times when he was the on-duty physician in an after-hours clinic.
The relationship allegedly broke down after the woman became pregnant in May 2020 and he told her he wasn’t prepared to co-parent a child with her. She reported the situation to her OB-GYN soon after. The woman terminated the pregnancy, the report states.