Reporter: Mike Konon

A jury has awarded $402,000 to a 50-year-old Vista woman who said her psychiatrist dominated her and sexually abused her over an eight-year period.

The plaintiff, Magdalena Van Der Hoeven, was awarded the damages from Dr. Frederick A. Martin, a psychiatrist and osteopath, by a Superior Court jury of seven women and five men who had deliberated for 1-½ hours.

Martin is serving a 2 ½-year term in Arizona State Prison on his no-contest pleas to charges of sexually abusing two other patients. His license to practice medicine was rescinded after more than 10 patients complained of sexual abuse.

Van Der Hoeven's attorney, David S. Casey Jr., said the sexual abuse and domination of his client began in 1974 in Yuma, where Martin was the only practicing psychiatrist, and continued after Van Der Hoeven moved to San Diego County in 1980.

Casey said Martin demanded that Van Der Hoeven telephone him weekly, take prescriptions he mailed her and visit Yuma periodically for therapy.

After the verdict was announced, jury foreman Melvin Dunlap commented: "She was not getting treatment, and he was hurting her. We found she was suffering, is suffering now and will continue to suffer."

The jury voted the award on a 10-2 vote, with two female jurors favoring a higher damage award.

Casey had suggested damages of $3 million to $5 million. Defense attorney Jack W. Crumley suggested $50,000 to $100,000.

According to testimony during the trial, Martin dominated Van Der Hoeven by taking advantage of her childhood experiences in the Dutch East Indies, which became Indonesia as a war for independence followed World War II.

Van Der Hoeven told jurors that she and other members of her family spent three years as prisoners of the Japanese and four years in a refugee camp before joining her mother in the Netherlands.

She testified that at the time she began seeing Martin she was depressed by the recent deaths of a brother, her mother and her mother-in-law. Soon, her husband also died, she said.

Two psychiatrists and a psychologist called by Casey agreed that Martin’s actions harmed Van Der Hoeven’s psychological condition.

Dr. Melvin Goldzband, a psychiatrist called by the defense, said Martin’s treatment "was not at all helpful, not good psychiatric technique, but whether she was injured or not depends on the patient’s response."

Casey asked Goldzband: "During the entire eight years, then, there was no therapeutic relationship?"

"Not in my view," Goldzband said.

Said Casey: "It was a severe traumatic event, then, when she learned he had lied to her?"

"Yes," Goldzband said. "It destroyed her faith in therapists."

Goldzband refused to speculate on possible harm done by Martin, however, telling the jury:

"It is necessary to compare the way she was before seeing Martin and how she was after. She was severely depressed when she began seeing him, was severely depressed while she was seeing him and certainly is severely depressed now. She did not change."

In his closing argument, Casey said Van Der Hoeven "was not in psychiatric care at any time in her life until she went to Martin."