A family physician in the rural northeast corner of California pleaded guilty Monday to one count of felony child pornography for secretly videotaping teenage girls during pelvic and breast exams. Owen Murphy Panner Jr., 60, used a miniature camera hidden in the breast pocket of his shirt to videotape the pelvic examination of a 15-year-old female patient, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said.
Panner also installed small cameras in air vents above an examination table to record a nurse practitioner performing breast and pelvic exams on a 16-year-old patient.
The recordings were made in 2001 at the Modoc Medical Clinic and were discovered three years later by hunters walking in a field, the U.S. attorney's office said. The tapes had been buried in a Tupperware-style container.
Scott said Panner admitted producing the tapes and acknowledged he kept them because he was a "pack rat." Calls to a residential number in Panner's name in Alturas went unanswered Monday.
According to state Medical Board records, Panner was a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, and had practiced medicine for 27 years. He surrendered his medical license in April 2006.
He faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in September in U.S. District Court.