A new lawsuit accuses a former Harvard Medical School professor of secretly using his own sperm to artificially inseminate a patient he saw in 1980. That patient, 73-year-old Sarah Depoian, is now suing the retired professor for what her legal team has described as “medical rape.”

The now-retired professor, Dr. Merle Berger, was regarded as a pioneer in his field by many. Along with teaching obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard, he was a co-founder of one of the nation’s largest fertility clinics, Boston IVF Fertility Clinic. That well-polished reputation is now crumbling after his former patient accused him of knowingly using his own sperm to impregnate her.

Depoian filed her lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in early December. In her complaint, Depoian details that in 1979, she and her husband were struggling with infertility when they went to see Dr. Berger to discuss the possibility of intrauterine insemination. Dr. Berger assured the couple that a sperm sample would be collected from an anonymous donor “who resembled her husband, who did not know her, and whom she did not know.” In 1980, the procedure was successful and the couple welcomed their daughter Carolyn Bester in 1981.

It wasn't until the start of 2023 that the couple discovered the shocking reality that their sperm donor was actually their former fertility doctor. At the start of the year, the couple's daughter took an at-home DNA test from Ancestry.com and 23andMe to learn more about her history. When she received the DNA results back, she discovered that her biological father was Dr. Berger.

According to the lawsuit, Bester, who is now 42, did not have a direct match to Dr. Berger on her DNA test. However, she was able to determine that she shared DNA with a granddaughter and a second cousin related to Berger. After speaking with the related family members, Bester was able to determine that Dr. Berger was her biological father. After making the shocking revelation, Bester told her mother who then contacted Berger through a lawyer.

“To say I was shocked when I figured this out would be an extreme understatement. It feels like reality has shifted,” Bester shared with NBC News. “My mom put her trust in Dr. Berger as a medical professional during one of the most vulnerable times in her life. He had all the power and she had none.”

A representative for the clinic Dr. Berger helped found, Boston IVF Fertility Clinic, shared a statement via a spokesperson that maintained Berger’s action occurred before he was employed at the clinic and before the clinic ever existed.

The company’s statement read, “The field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility is much different than it was decades ago, and the safety measures and safeguards currently in place would make such allegations virtually impossible nowadays.”

Depoian, who now lives in Maine, shared through her legal team, “We fully trusted Dr. Berger. He was a medical professional. It’s hard to imagine not trusting your own doctor. We never dreamt he would abuse his position of trust and perpetrate this extreme violation. I am struggling to process it.”

Depoian’s lawsuit accuses Dr. Berger of fraudulent concealment for purposefully concealing that he used his own sperm during the insemination. She is also accusing him of fraud for intentional misrepresentation after he told her “he could not use the same sperm donor for her second child that he had used to achieve a pregnancy that led to her first child.”

The lawsuit also maintains Dr. Berger violated Massachusetts Consumer Protection Law Ch. 93A because of his unfair and deceptive conduct. Because of his conduct, Depoian maintains she was “greatly injured.”