Massachusetts Family Physician Arrested for Having More than 75 Devices FULL of Child Porn.
A Massachusetts family physician has been arrested after a lengthy investigation discovered he had hidden cameras, including one that looked like a bracelet, in several homes. The authorities in Winchester first reviewed tips from a national clearinghouse for child sexual exploitation information in January, according to the complaint filed in federal court. Videos with suspected child pornography were uploaded to a Google Drive in November 2021 and March 2022, each done in an IP address traced to Syracuse.
According to reports, Dr. Bradford Ferrick, 32, was arrested Tuesday morning on a charge of possessing child pornography and was due to appear virtually in federal court in Boston, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts.
About 80 devices were seized from Ferrick's homes in Winchester and Amherst, including hidden camera systems, last month, and thousands of images and videos showing suspected sexual images of children, prosecutors said. Alleged victims appear to be between 6 and 11. There has been no word on if any of these children are patients or relatives however, a hidden camera was found in the home of a relative that had two small children.
"I can think of no greater fear as a parent or guardian than potential harm coming to your child. Today we allege that this doctor, who held a position of trust with access to children, maintained child sexual abuse material," U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement, noting that the investigation is ongoing.
Ferrick is a family medicine resident at Baystate Franklin Family Medicine, according to prosecutors. A hospital website listed him as a current resident at the hospital system's Greenfield Family Medicine. In the state of Massachusetts, Ferrick had rotations in Springfield, Deerfield and Greenfield, prosecutors said. Before joining the hospital system in July 2022, he worked attended State University of New York's Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.
On Feb. 13, and seized 61 devices, including hidden camera systems, computers, cellphones and storage devices that, in total, were able to contain more than 100 terabytes of data. Just days later police returned to the home and found even more devices after they say a device, that was in their custody, had been accessed remotely and tampered with. Two weeks later another police searched a home in Amherst that Ferrick rented and found eight more devices.
Police say that the memory card housed in the "bracelet" style camera had videos of Ferrick examining patients and a conversation between Ferrick and a teenage boy while he examined his genitalia. The boy's mother was also in the room. None of the recorded patients, or their parents, appeared to know that they were being recorded.
He was arrested on four counts of possessing child pornography and released two days later on $50,000 bail under conditions including house arrest.
We will continue to report on this story as more details become available.
