No A-frame: Judge convicts dentist of farewell butt grab
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George Tisdelle was arrested nearly a week after a former employee says she was groped.PHOTO ALBEMARLE POLICE
It was a classic case of she-said/he-said. She said the farewell hug included a grope of her right buttock. He said it was a rub on the back. In Albemarle General District Court Wednesday, Judge Bob Downer found dentist George Tisdelle, 51, guilty of sexual battery, a Class 1 misdemeanor, and gave him 90 days, all suspended.
The young Ruckersville woman who filed the complaint testified that the groping took place on June 3, her last day working at Tisdelle’s Ivy Road practice, where she’d worked for a year.
“He came in to say goodbye,” the victim recalled. “He had his arms out and said, ‘Can I get a squeeze or a hug?’”
Defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana noted that the written complaint filed six days after the incident only mentioned a request for a hug, not a squeeze. And throughout the 90-minute trial, Quagliana portrayed a mere “A-frame hug” that her client allegedly used, with hands on the shoulders in a position far north of the derriere.
The former employee— not identified out of standard journalistic practice of cloaking sexual assault victims— disagreed. She portrayed a devilish dentist who pointed out that she was thin and then awkwardly reached southward.
“He came around and grabbed my right butt cheek,” she testified. “I was not expecting that.”
She also testified about an uncomfortable interlude, a months-earlier incident in which Tisdelle allegedly made a laughing remark about putting a camera in the small room that the dental office provided for lactating staffers. During the same conversation, the employee testified, he complimented her shirt.
The defense contended that the assistant’s work was unsatisfactory, an effort that seemed geared toward suggesting a motive to manufacture an incident as revenge. However, the woman testified that she simply gave two weeks notice because she found work 10 minutes from home rather than 45 minutes.
Christine Brown has been the office manager at the practice Tisdelle shares with his wife, and Brown said that in 11 years, she’d never heard of any fondling complaints about Tisdelle. However, Brown was within earshot that day, and she told the court that after Tisdelle went in to issue a farewell that she heard the departing employee yell out “hey.” Another employee testified that she, too, heard a sudden “hey” during Tisdelle’s farewell embrace. Both fellow employees say the victim told them what happened and demonstrated the allegedly errant hug.
“I was not expecting that,” the woman testified. “I pushed him back.”
In his own defense, Tisdelle took the stand to deny any groping. He insisted that, yes, he remarked that the woman was thin but he claimed he was properly confining his rubbing to her back when she inexplicably yelled.
Prosecutor Will Hendricks said he could have produced even more corroborating witnesses.
“It’s an embarrassing charge,” said Hendricks. “I think Dr. Tisdelle feels entitled.”
Quagliana closed by once again demonstrating an A-frame hug— “the hug you do when you don’t want to touch—” and maintained that the disparate stories had to raise reasonable doubt in the mind of the judge.
Not this judge. Downer found Tisdelle guilty.
“I don’t have any doubts,” said Downer. “I think he did touch her inappropriately.”
Downer did, however, concur with Quagliana that the sexual battery doesn’t amount to assault and battery, so he suspended the 90-day sentence on the condition of two years good behavior.
Tisdelle vows an appeal.
Updated 9:15pm with the correct spelling of Will Hendricks’ name.
Sounds like much ado about nothing. If I were Dr. Tisdelle I never would have opted for “trial by judge”, especially with this judge. Surely a jury would see things differently. Shame on the hook too for not publishing the “victim’s” name.
This is one of those cases where it sure would be nice to have a video available to determine whose telling the truth and who isn’t.
This also had to be an extremely hard case for Judge Downer to rule in. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes that day!
Quagliana closed by once again demonstrating again an A-frame hug— “the hug you do when you don’t want to touch—”
When you don’t want to touch, you don’t ask someone for a hug, as the defendant did here. And you certainly don’t start rubbing them, as he has admitted… based solely on what I’ve read here I’d probably have convicted him too.
Female cries foul .. male convicted .. seems to be the prevailing wind whether guilty or not.
Rhonda Quagliana has certainly represented some of the most infamous people accused of some of the most heinous crimes. The very fact that she was selected as his attorney makes one wonder.
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I’ve known Dr Tisdelle for many years, Back when he was working with Dr Alton Thomas, He has been my Denist for years and I dont beleive that Dr Tisdelle would do anything like what he is accused of doing. I have been around Dr Tisdelle at his office and around the city and at his home. and I dont beleive he is that kind of person. I can smell a lawsuit.
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slimedog - only a jury could see the truth, those who don’t sit through the trial are unqualified to speak. Rush to judgment? Makes MY skin crawl.
He can note an appeal within ten days if he is unsatisfied and have his case tried to a jury in the Circuit Court. His attorney will advise him that his outcome may be better or it may be worse, and ultimately the dentist will have to decide whether to chance it. There just seems to be too much evidence to corroborate her story. Disinterested witnesses hearing the “hey!”, no one hearing any exclamation of “what?” from him, him corroborating every element of her story except the one critical second. Just because he only did it to one person doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done it at all. He felt something stronger toward this woman than he did toward most. He gets off light, essentially with just a sentence of embarassment. What if he hadn’t been so direct as to go for a squeeze but had just done that, oh-the-heel-of-my-hand-grazed-your-behind-as-it-fell-away-from-our-hug maneuver? She probably wouldn’t have yelped, it would have sounded like too much of a gray area to the judge, he would have got away with it, and she would still feel like she just got slimed.
@Gasbag - Tisdelle would agree about the camera, he apparently wanted one installed too….though it was to videotape lactating staffers.
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What a waste of time. Why someone in this day and age would do anything beyond calling him out at the time or alerting her coworkers.. or telling uis wife is beyond me.
The judge has more important things to do like listen to the crybabies over in Belmont who think 56db is too high a noise level.
Well he might have gotten off easily with the court but I guess his name is not to good in the dental community now.
It’s no wonder this country is fast becoming a joke in other parts of the world, when an established professional’s reputation can be besmirched by such a triviality as this and maybe even be required to submit to the indignity of having to register as a “sex offender”. On the other hand, though the “victim” (who suffered no genuine harm) can remain anonymous in the press, she won’t be likely to do so in the dental field and her name will get passed around the professional community. Her current job may her last hire in this area, as it should be if she’s that much of a troublemaker. She probably had reasons beyond a shorter commute for switching jobs and I am suspicious she was settling a score with the doctor. She’d never get hired in my office.
I believe that he did end up touching her butt. Otherwise, the Commonwealth’s Attorney wouldn’t have wasted his time prosecuting the case. The process for making a complaint with the police, talking it over with the Commonwealth’s attorney, and bringing it before the court is not an easy process for someone who feels that she’s had her personal space violated. In sexual assault, the defense’s case revolves around physical evidence/witnesses and credibility of the witnesses.
In his case, he claimed to do one thing (A frame hug) and then admitted to doing something else (touched her lower back (she said butt). That’s inconsistent testimony, and is therefore not credible.
She had a consistent story, and there were witnesses who overheard her reaction to his actions, and their testimony was consistent with what she said. She wins. He loses.
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If you think it’s not harmful when people are sexually harassed, touched inappropriately, or assaulted, then you are mistaken. It’s not okay to infringe on other people’s personal space and violate their boundaries. It’s not your place to say whether or not she was harmed–she experienced it as harmful to her enough that she went through the whole (very stressful) legal process to deal with it. She had to endure the indignity of being groped AND the indignity of his defense argument that she was a bad employee, which is wholly irrelevant to the charge and is just an attempt to smear her.
If slapped you in the face, you would rightfully be able to claim assault and press charges, even if it didn’t leave a bruise. Why is this so different?
This may not seem as serious to you as some cases - and it’s not - and the law recognized that it’s not by convicting him of a misdemeanor charge that didn’t even lead to jail time - but every time society makes it “okay” for someone to violate another person’s rights, we run the risk of more egregious offenses. I’m glad that he got his conviction and slap on the wrist, and I hope he thinks twice before he puts his hands on someone else.
I think this is a typical case of “he said” - “she said” and of course being the “accused” male, the “she said” prevailed.
Perhaps his defense should have been that she never minded it in the past…….
The lesson would be that if the Police ask you if you ever grabbed a girls butt your reply should be “I always grab a girls butt when we are having consensual sex”
I still say he shoplifted the booty.