Following a July 31 arraignment, Penn Neurosurgery Professor Tracy McIntosh is scheduled for a Sept. 3 pretrial conference for charges related to his alleged rape of a 23-year-old woman in his office.
McIntosh voluntarily surrendered himself to police in April 2003 and was then released on $2,000 bail. He was later charged with rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment.
The rape allegedly took place on Sept. 6, 2002 in McIntosh's Hayden Hall office while he and the woman -- now 24 -- were under the influence of marijuana that McIntosh had provided.
The woman is a niece of one of McIntosh's friends and is on deferred admission status from Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.
Penn began an internal investigation of the incident "about two and a half months after the alleged events" and was unable to produce evidence supporting the woman's report, University Health System spokeswoman Rebecca Harmon said in an interview in May.
Allegations also arose that McIntosh used drugs from his laboratory to sedate the woman before raping her. However, according to Harmon, the claim has not been substantiated.
"In early May, the [Drug Enforcement Administration] performed an audit of Dr. McIntosh's lab," Harmon said. However, she added, the DEA has not found that the drug was used for anything other than its intended research purpose.
At a July 10 preliminary hearing, a lab worker testified "that she had neglected to properly record the use of a laboratory drug used appropriately in a research study," Harmon said.
That hearing had been delayed for over a month in a failed attempt to reach a plea agreement. Now that McIntosh has been arraigned, both parties will meet with a judge at a pretrial conference to assess the status of the case.
Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office of Philadelphia, said a plea agreement is still "very possible" at this point.
However, McIntosh's attorney Tom Bergstrom indicated otherwise, saying that any negotiations for a plea agreement have ended and he is planning on going to trial.
"We're pleading not guilty; we're going to try the case," Bergstrom said.
If the case does go to trial, Bergstrom said he expects it to last a week or more. He said he is unsure if McIntosh will testify.
McIntosh, a member of the University's faculty since 1992, whose research has focused on brain injury, remains "on administrative leave pending resolution of the matter," according to Harmon.
The supervision of McIntosh's grant work has also been reassigned in his absence.
