Multiple high schools are encouraging their students to apply for a “scholarship” by sending their name, phone number, and physical and email addresses to a doctor who surrendered his medical license after being repeatedly accused of meeting young aspiring medical professionals online and tricking them into filming porn that he sold or posted to shame them.
In May and June, two university students separately sued Philip T. Sobash, an Arkansas doctor, saying he is “a serial sexual predator who convinces unwitting young women into sending nude images to him and then posts the images with his victims’ names and other personal identifying information onto notorious websites, inciting others to anonymously harass and attack his victims. He sells the images for personal gain. But, more than that, he enjoys harming his victims.”
On August 5, the Arkansas medical board forwarded information about Sobash to the FBI, “encouraged the physician to utilize a chaperone at all times when seeing patients,” and ordered him to come before the board in October, according to medical board meeting minutes. On October 7, the board “unanimously voted to accept the surrender of Dr. Sobash’s Arkansas medical licenses in lieu of continuing with the investigative process,” according to board records.
Lawsuits say Sobash sometimes sent small amounts of money, such as $2,000, to his victims through Venmo around the time they sent photos.
Now, Sobash has set up a scholarship fund that encourages high school and college students to personally contact him in the hopes that they will be the winner of his “scholarship”: a payment of $1,000 awarded to one student.
Numerous high schools and colleges promoted the opportunity. Fort Vancouver High School in Vancouver, Washington, for example, instructed high schoolers “with an interest in becoming a medical doctor” to:
Please email the following information along with your essay (in .doc format) to [email protected]:
Full name
Phone number
Bio
Address
Email Aaddress [sic]
Projected graduation date
School currently attending
Cumulative GPA
A sampling of the many other high schools promoting the scholarship include Pearl River High School in New York, the North Ridgeville City Schools in Ohio, the Prarie du Chien Area School District in Wisconsin, the Starmont Community School District in Iowa, the Vinton County, Ohio schools, and Alfred Ely Beach High School in Savannah, Georgia.
The scholarship website was registered on July 2, according to domain records. The site says the “deadline to apply for the scholarship is December 16, 2021” and the “Dr. Philip Sobash Scholarship winner will be announced on January 16, 2022.” It says he wants to “give back to the future medical doctors of America.”
The scholarships were posted by high schools after the New York Post wrote about one of the lawsuits against Sobash in May, which meant his background was easily locatable on Google at the time.
Louisiana
On June 30, a graduate student in her early 20s in Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit saying she met Sobash online and he would ask her to send him pictures engaging in specific sexual acts, which she did based on promises they were for his eyes only. She later learned that the pictures were being posted online and that he was engaging in “made-to-order” pornography for paying customers, the lawsuit said.
“Dr. Sobash was receiving requests for particular scenarios from his ‘customers,’ and he would then act as the producer of these pornographic images, made for commercial gain, and then he would distribute them to his customers… Jane Doe was not interested in being a commercial porn actress and was instead pursuing a career in medicine,” it said.
“On information and belief, Dr. Sobash has multiple other victims, some of whom are underage,” it added.
“Defendant has represented himself as an upstanding citizen and had gained Jane Doe’s trust over a period of time,” it said. “Jane Doe confronted Defendant because he was the only person to whom she had sent any of the photographs. Defendant lied and claimed he had been hacked.”
On July 22 the woman asked the court to drop her case “with prejudice,” which often signals that an out-of-court settlement has been reached.
California
On May 28, another woman filed suit in federal court in California, saying that in 2018, when she was a 21-year old university student interested in pursuing a career in nursing, Sobash met her online and convinced her to send him nude photos on the promise he would keep them private.
Sobash “would send her props like sex toys and nursing machines to photograph herself with and then he would direct her. Jane Doe had developed trust with Dr. Sobash and would usually indulge his fetishes,” it said.
“On or about February 2019, Jane Doe received a direct message on Instagram from an unknown person who sent her a link to a Reddit forum where Defendant had published and commercially sold sexually explicit photographs of Jane Doe under the username ‘innocent t–s,’” it continued.
That woman also withdrew her suit with prejudice on June 17.
Michigan
In April 2017, a third woman from Michigan sued Sobash, then a South Carolina resident, for similar alleged behavior. The suit said Sobash struck up an online relationship with the woman, solicited nude photographs, then caused them to be published online on “multiple websites–some of which are notorious revenge pornography websites.” She was 21 or 22 when that online relationship allegedly began in 2015, and was a nurse by the time she filed suit.
“A number of the websites upon which Plaintiff’s nude photographs and videos are published note that Plaintiff attended Oakland University, resides in the State of Michigan, and is a nurse who works at a hospital in the State of Michigan. Said identifiers were intentionally published with Plaintiff’s nude photographs and videos so that it would be easier for third-parties to harass Plaintiff,” the suit said.
“Third-parties who view the content on revenge pornography websites often post offensively despicable remarks about victims in the public comment sections, and it is very common for said third-parties to sadistically forward the nude photographs and videos to the family, friends, and the employers of the revenge pornography victims,” it continued.
The suit said Sobash “ignored Plaintiff’s desperate pleas” to remove the images. In June 2017, that woman agreed to withdraw the suit with prejudice as well, according to federal court records.
‘Tried to fly me out to have sex with him at 16’
The most recent lawsuit says “Defendant Phillip [sic] T. Sobash, MD resides in Batesville, Arkansas where he practices internal medicine at White River Health System, and on information and belief, also maintains a residence in Charleston, South Carolina.”
In October 2020, White River posted a picture of Sobash on its Instagram, and most of the comments were about his alleged sexual behavior.
Instragram screenshot
“[T]his is the doctor PHILIP sobash that had been selling my naked photos and videos all over the internet,” one woman commented below it in June.
Another woman, from Tennessee, commented on the hospital’s Instagram post: “he tried to fly me out to have sex with him at 16! had to get fbi involved bc he posted nude pics & vids of me at 15!! bc i wouldn’t go see him. not to mention, with ALL my personal info. i’m 20 now & still receive death threats, he’s ruined my life forever.” That woman did not return a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
White River still lists Sobash among its residents on its website. Multiple hospital officials did not return requests for information about Sobash’s employment status from The Daily Wire. Instead, a voicemail left for Internal Medicine Program Director Gilbert Roy Kamoga was responded to by a man who said he was a paralegal named Mike who worked for Sobash’s attorney and was responding on Sobash’s behalf.
He blamed “feminists” and said the lawsuits had been “settled.” He declined to characterize Sobash’s employment status and did not provide any evidence contradicting the medical board documents showing that his license was surrendered.
The phone number from which “Mike” called is registered to Francis Santa, a convicted fraudster who runs a firm called Business Image Lift, which says it uses “a proprietary method” to remove negative information about its clients from the internet.
School responses
Craig Daughtry, the principal of Alfred Ely Beach High School, and Kurt Hetager, communications director for the Savannah-Chatham County (Georgia) Public School System, of which the school is a part, did not respond to an email whose subject line was “Urgent media request – school website directing students to contact alleged pornographer.” The school is still advertising the scholarship.
North Ridgeville did not return a request for comment.
Vancouver Public Schools said “the scholarship has been pulled from our websites. All scholarship opportunities include the following disclaimer: This program is not sponsored by Vancouver Public Schools. Approval to distribute flyers is a community service and does not imply endorsement.” It added that its “scholarship vetting process includes… Verifying scholarship sponsor is legitimate (in this case, the doctor’s credentials were verified on HealthGrade).”
“I will have members of my secondary staff investigate these allegations and determine if the scholarship information will remain posted or not,” Gary Bena, the superintendent of Starmont, said.
Pearl River High School said “Upon learning of the allegations, the Pearl River School District terminated this scholarship opportunity.”
In addition to the scholarship program, on October 26, weeks after surrendering his medical license, Sobash also announced a “mentorship for current students.” A press release, which lists Sobash as the point of contact, quotes a student saying Sobash “gives his best to groom and encourage his students.”
Related: Loudoun County Schools Tried To Conceal Sexual Assault Against Daughter In Bathroom, Father Says
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