Dr. David Blasczak came across as a trusting family doctor, specializing in the care of children out of his office in Clyde since 1991. For decades he treated the children of Wayne County families until one day on January 18, 2018 after Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) discovered that he subscribed to an overseas child pornography website.
The Court documents revealed just how extensive the Doctor’s child pornography extended. “Through the Internet, Blasczak purchased thousands of images and videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children. Upon his arrest, agents found him to be in possession at least 2,557 images and 78 videos of child pornography. His collection almost exclusively involved prepubescent minors, and included images of children subjected to sadistic and masochistic sexual abuse. The size and nature of his child pornography collection, and the fact that he was willing to pay for it through a payroll processor linked to his bank account, demonstrate his obsession with the sexual abuse of children. The heinous nature of his collection cannot be overstated.
By purchasing such a vast quantity of child pornography, the defendant created a market for child pornography. This market results in the rape of real children by sex offenders. The production of child pornography is the by-product of that abuse. By purchasing and savoring child pornography from a for-profit website, Blasczak contributed to the degradation of the children depicted therein, and the deleterious effect that child pornography has on all children. The fact that he did so while practicing as a family physician with hundreds of child patients, exacerbates his conduct. In his profession, the defendant had a sacred duty to protect and heal children. Instead, he contributed to their abuse and sponsored their further degradation.”
In actuality, this was not the first brush Blasczak had with police and potential charges of sexual exploitation of children.
Court papers reveal that in 2015 Blasczak was caught surreptitiously photographing the genital area of a 5 year old girl during a kindergarten orientation at a Newark elementary school in September. The child’s father notified the school principal and the police responded. Police interviewed both Blasczak and the child’s father, but ultimately did not find sufficient evidence to charge the doctor. It was reported that the defendant’s access to the school was thereafter restricted.
In fact, Blasczak continued to violate children, despite having been confronted and investigated by law enforcement on three separate occasions between 1993 and 2015 for suspected child abuse. None of these contacts deterred him from continuing to victimize children.
Blasczak, now 70 years old, admitted to HSI that his sexual interest in children began when he was in his twenties. He described himself as having a “proclivity to pedophilia” and was “hardwired to be sexually attracted to pre-pubertal girls.”
Blasczak told investigators his interest in child sexual abuse began during his honeymoon with his first wife in the early 1970s in Reno, Nevada. On one afternoon during the trip, the defendant left his hotel to take a walk. He wandered into a bookstore, where he found a section containing what he described to be child pornographic materials. He told HSI that, at that moment he became “totally fascinated by the idea that one could enjoy sex with children.” By his own admissions, in the four decades that followed, the defendant would: (1) sexually abuse his daughter’s friends; (2) exploit his own child patients and their parents; (3) surreptitiously photograph children in public; (4) steal children’s underwear; (5) collect child pornography; (6) purchase child sex dolls; and (7) author novels concerning the sexual abuse of children.
Blasczak sexually abused his daughter’s friends while they were entrusted to his care. In the plea agreement he admits that he hosted slumber parties at his home, in which minor females between the ages of 7 and 12 would attend. These children were friends of his youngest daughter. On several occasions, he entered the room where the girls were sleeping, manipulated their clothing and subjected them to sexual contact, which typically consisted of the defendant touching the minors’ vaginas, buttocks, legs, and chests through clothing. At times, he removed the minors’ clothing and masturbated to the point of ejaculation. He also took photographs of the girls’ exposed chests, buttocks, and legs when he was able to remove their clothing. When asked by HSI if he masturbated to these images, the defendant replied “oh yeah.” He told HSI that he engaged in as many as 40 different such incidents, involving approximately 8 to 10 victims.
Through an extraordinarily massive and diligent effort, HSI identified dozens of individuals who were victimized or exploited by the Doctor in some fashion.
The Doctor’s child exploitative behavior exceeded the bounds of his home. During his interview with HSI, he recounted instances in which he stole children’s underwear from various places, including a friend’s house, his step-grandson’s school, and from his own daughter’s friends.
During a search of the defendant’s medical office, HSI discovered prepubescent anatomically correct child sex dolls, personal lubricant, a photograph in a “teaching file” depicting an apparent minor patient’s vagina, and novels that the defendant wrote concerning the sexual abuse of children. The defendant admitted to HSI that he had purchased, but discarded, other child sex dolls in the past. The novels he wrote were accompanied by binders containing photographs of prepubescent girls.
HSI identified multiple individuals who were victimized or exploited by the defendant under the guise of a “medical study.”
Blasczak told parents that participation would assist the defendant in studying the effects of child sexual abuse, and therefore would assist him in diagnosing and treating abused children. Parents were often paid cash for their child’s “participation” in the “study,” and it is clear that parents truly believed he had the best interest of their own and other children in mind.
Parents were hesitant to question the defendant’s motives due to his position in the community and his role as their family physician. The mother of one victim, knew the Doctor for more than 25 years, both as a co-worker, and through her church. She wholly trusted the defendant, and readily agreed to allow her young daughter to participate in his supposed “study” between 1997 and 1998. When he began to require her daughter to assume different, apparently sexual positions, she thought it was “strange” but didn’t question the defendant. She stated: “I mean he was my doctor. All four of my kids’ doctor.”
In perpetrating this form of abuse, Blaaczak placed children as young as 7 into stirrups, used speculums, digitally penetrated children with his fingers using petroleum jelly, and photographed them. This all happened in the presence of trusting parents, who believed that he was conducting a legitimate study and would never harm their children.
Blasczak initially told law enforcement that these examinations were done so that he could “train [him]self to do child sex abuse exams.” He ultimately admitted to HSI that “50% of [his] motivation was to obtain some pornography or sexually explicit photos for [his] own personal use” and the other 50% was to “get good at that kind of exam.” He freely admitted that he masturbated to photographs that he took of the children’s genitals before destroying them.
One of the defendant’s victims maintained journals between 2003 and 2011, which were provided to HSI during the course of the investigation.
She was well-known to HSI through interviews of other victims and witnesses. One such witness was recently interviewed on October 26, 2018 in San Francisco, CA. The witness described intimate conversations that she had with the Victim concerning the child sexual abuse that she suffered at the hands of Blasczak.
The government investigators described the Victim as Blasczak’s primary target. She suffered irreparable psychological and emotional damage in a way that others did not.
The written journals described how the Victim suffered from depression, self doubt, she felt worthless. She could never trust men. She stated that she was scarred, and believed she was “dirty and disgusting,” because of what the defendant did to her as a child. She talked about wanting to end her own life. She took her own life in 2012.
Federal guidelines recommend a top sentence of just under 22 years, but the judge has leeway to move that in either direction. Prosecutors argued in their papers that sentence would leave Blasczak 92 years old at the time he is released. They are seeking a longer sentence to ensure he dies in prison.
Thanks to news partner 13WHAM for contributing to this story