A federal grand jury this week indicted an accomplished 62-year-old Newport Beach specialist in gynecologic oncology–also an associate professor at UCLA and USC–on child pornography possession charges.
According to the indictment, Dr. Mark A. Rettenmaier “knowingly possessed” the alleged illicit material in Orange and San Bernardino counties in 2011 and 2012 on an Apple Mac Book Pro, a Hewlett Packard laptop, a USB external hard drive and on a 64GB iPhone 4S.
Rettenmaier, a onetime UC Irvine associate professor, has not officially offered a plea to the charges and there's no indication in court records inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana if federal agents have arrested the defendant.
Within the Orange County branch of the Department of Justice, Assistant United States Attorney Mark Anthony Brown will handle prosecution duties.
]
A federal judge has not yet been selected to preside and in coming days hearings will be scheduled.
Rittenmaier's website boasts of numerous personal accomplishments, including receiving honors from the American Cancer Society, UC Irvine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, St. Joseph Hospital, La Amistad Clinic, SOS Clinic and CalOptima.
The doctor–who is employed by Gynecologic Oncology Associates in Newport Beach–is also a well-published author of medical texts and has donated significant time to charity indigent care.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
Email: rs**********@oc******.com. Twitter: @RScottMoxley.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.