No net cast for fugitive in sex abuse case

Jon Standefer

The San Diego Union-Tribune

A decade ago, the name Dr. Philip Broeckel was almost synonymous, at least in East San Diego County, with good works.

Broeckel (rhymes with Jekyll), who was then in his early 50s, was the epitome of the ever-smiling, easygoing, always concerned family physician, administering to hundreds of elderly residents of nursing homes and board-and-care facilities all over East County.

He also was a stalwart member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who unselfishly spent weekends in Mexico seeing and treating the lame at free clinics.

And his own home was practically an unofficial children's shelter.

Broeckel and his second wife, Julie, had two children of their own, adopted several others, became guardians for others and, over a period of about five years, took in numerous orphans, runaways and abandoned kids. From 15 to 20 children at a given time lived under his roof; so many that the family eventually began traveling around in a remodeled school bus.

But that was then. Now he's a fugitive, convicted of sexual abuse of four of his adopted children, and facing 98 years in a Texas prison if he is caught.

The irony is that nobody's looking for him; nobody official, anyway.

It has been nearly two years since he jumped bail of $60,000, the day before Broeckel was to take the witness stand in his own defense in a South Texas courtroom.

In Texas, once a trial starts it continues, even if the defendant flees. So the jury convicted an empty chair of four counts of sexual battery and child molestation. The Hidalgo County district judge stacked the sentences and Dr. Broeckel faces 98 years in prison.

The judge also issued arrest warrants and sent them to the sheriff's office. But they were never added to any of several regional and national computer networks used by law enforcement agencies to track criminals beyond state lines.

Nor did the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office forward -- until very recently -- the paperwork of Broeckel's conviction to the U.S. attorney in San Antonio for a federal warrant known by the acronym UFAP (unlawful flight to avoid prosecution), which would get the FBI into the hunt.

The fact that no UFAP warrants have been issued makes Broeckel no less a fugitive, however.

Jane Alonzo, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Broeckel in Texas, believes he is in Mexico. The grown children of his first marriage, including two sons who live in North County, believe he is in Guatemala, and have an address for him there.

A bounty hunter recently told Broeckel's second wife, Julie, that he had been cited for traffic violations in locations as far flung as Lake Tahoe and the state of Virginia, but a computer search of those states' traffic records turned up no citations.

Julie Barryman (she took back her maiden name after they divorced) believes that her ex-husband is hiding out in San Diego County, and she claims to have seen him at a North County condo; she also insists that at least two of her children and an adult friend have spotted him in El Cajon.

Barryman, whose actions after the couple separated in 1985 led to the criminal charges against Broeckel two years later, says she is scared that Broeckel may by vengeful, and is frustrated that San Diego law enforcement agencies haven't bothered to look for him.

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Julie Barryman was a 25-year-old former flight attendant running an El Cajon nursing home in 1974 when she met Philip Broeckel. They were married two years later after he divorced his first wife, and the family soon expanded -- they had their own children and took in those of others, adopted or otherwise.

"Phil had always wanted to adopt children," Barryman said recently. "He loved children and wanted to help as many as possible."

He kept bringing them home, boys and girls from age 2 to 15; Hispanic as well as Anglo; even some who were mentally retarded.

Most of them, says Barryman, came via his practice -- a mother who couldn't take care of her child would ask her doctor for help. Once a grandmother turned over three of her grandchildren to him.

"What I didn't know, until much later," Barryman says, "was that he molested every one of the kids he brought home, usually from the first day on.

"We had plenty of money," she says. "I thought we were the perfect family. We went to church together ... he was Superdad, always doing things with the children."

The first hint something was not right came in 1979, when the oldest foster daughter, then 16, told Barryman's closest friend, Leslie Orbach, that the doctor had molested her.

When Barryman told Broeckel, he denied it and had two psychiatrist friends examine the girl.

"They said she was making it up," says Barryman.

In late 1982, according to Barryman, Broeckel abruptly decided to close his practice here and buy an obstetrics-gynecology clinic in tiny San Juan, Texas, deep in the Rio Grande Valley. Before they left California, however, they became legal guardians for two mentally retarded children from a shelter in Tecate, Mexico, called Fundacion Para Ninos.

In 1983, the director of the Jamul-based Children's Foundation, which provided funds for the Tecate shelter, began hearing stories of abuse and molestation from children who had been at Fundacion.

The investigation by foundation director Victor Reintord led to Mexican authorities closing Fundacion and sending the husband of the shelter's director and another worker to prison. A key witness was a 13-year-old girl, taken in by the Broeckels, by then in Texas.

When the shelter was closed, two more children came to live with them.

"He was very well-respected," Reintord says of Broeckel. "He was like a savior of children that spring."

In 1985, two of the adopted Broeckel girls told Barryman that Broeckel had molested the former Tecate resident. Shocked, Barryman confronted Broeckel. He denied it, but moved out of the house.

At that point, Barryman moved with her brood of a dozen-plus back to Crest, "and spent the next year listening to my kids" tell about being molested by Broeckel.

In 1986, she went back to Texas and filed charges against him; in the meantime, he filed divorce papers. By the time of the trial, he had married the former Janice Hofstetter of El Cajon, who once worked as his office manager when he was still in practice there.

Broeckel was charged with four counts of sexual assault, aggravated assault and indecency with a child, involving four of his adopted daughters. The original bail of $1 million was reduced to $60,000 and he was released pending trial.

According to prosecutor Alonza and former prosecutor Roberto Salizar of Edinburg, the case against Broeckel was overwhelming. Salizar said the girls' testimony "was so consistent," backed up by medical evidence and by testimony from colleagues and co-workers who said Broeckel had made incriminating statements to them.

"The jury was very convinced," Alonzo said recently. "Here were four different girls telling basically the same story. It was very believable."

Alonzo also says the jury wasn't told that the defendant jumped bail after the prosecution rested.

"We talked to them afterwards; they said they just believed he didn't want to come to court."

The prosecutor said she was devastated when Broeckel fled.

"We should have had him taken into custody" during the trial, said Alonzo.

The failure to do so gave Broeckel his chance to flee. The fact that the prosecutor believed the physician headed to Mexico, where he had known contacts, meant that no one pressed for federal warrants and a search within the United States.

Julie Barryman and her friend, Leslie Orbach, say they saw Broeckel in an Escondido condo earlier this year. They contacted Escondido police, who checked out the owner but could establish no connection to Broeckel.

"We ran down all the leads Julie gave us," says Detective Sgt. Dan Starr. "We even set up a small surveillance of the house she pointed out, to see who was coming and going. The only people coming and going were Julie and her friend, sneaking around after I told them to stay away."

Starr says his first question was, "Why isn't the FBI on this case? This should be handled by a federal agency."

The answer is that the Texas prosecutors assumed Broeckel fled to Mexico and didn't ask for FBI help.

Ken Broeckel says reports that his fugitive father is in San Diego County are ridiculous.

Ken, who lives in Escondido, is the youngest of three sons of Broeckel and his first wife. (Another son, Philip Jr., is an emergency room physician at Scripps Memorial Hospital; he did not return several phone calls.)

Ken believes his father is in Guatemala. He would not provide an address, but offered to forward a letter before learning that mail to that Central American country had been suspended. (The suspension has since been lifted.)

He declined an interview, offering instead a two-sentence statement: "My dad was a responsible physician and a good father who made some costly mistakes. Whatever lessons to be had are for us as a family and not for a public article."

Young Broeckel did say that the family, which has not been contacted by any law enforcement agency, has consulted an attorney.

"We know there are two things we can't do: We aren't going to lie, and we can't put him up -- harbor him."