When Carolyn Bester bought a home ancestry kit late last year, she was excited to learn about her family history.
“I knew plenty of people who tried DNA tests and I actually thought I was going to have a lot of fun doing the research,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
Instead, the results led Bester, 42, to believe her biological father is a fertility doctor who performed the procedure that led to her birth, according to a lawsuit filed by her mother on Wednesday in Massachusetts District Court.
Bester’s mother, Sarah Depoian, claims Dr. Merle Berger inseminated her with his own sperm after she sought fertility treatment at his Boston area clinic more than 40 years ago, according to a complaint.
“We never dreamt we would have he would have used his position of trust and perpetrate this extreme violation,” Depoian told reporters at a press conference.
What does the lawsuit allege?
Depoian, who moved to Maine from Massachusetts three years ago, first visited Berger in 1979 to seek fertility treatment because she and her husband could not conceive using his sperm. She decided to undergo an intrauterine insemination, or IUI, a procedure in which sperm is inserted directly into the uterus, according to the complaint.
Berger told her he would use the sperm of an anonymous medical resident who resembled her husband for the procedure. Depoian and her husband paid a “significant amount of money” for the treatment, the lawsuit says.
“Dr. Berger masturbated in his own medical office, walked over to his patient while he was carrying his own sperm, and then deliberately inserted that sperm into his patient’s body, all the while knowing that she did not consent,” Adam Wolf, an attorney for Depoian, told reporters.
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Ancestry test prompted suspicion
The ancestry test taken by Bester late last year did not reveal a direct match for her biological father, but showed she is related to Berger’s granddaughter and second cousin.
“Somebody who was related to him reached out to me and asked me how we were related, and I said, interesting, I don’t know,” Bester said.
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