Parents of boy molested on beach sue attacker, former dentist

NAPLES — A retired dentist serving a 10-year prison term in a medical facility for molesting a teenager at Lely Barefoot Beach is now being sued by the teen and his parents.

The lawsuit filed by John Doe and his parents against David Rees Sperry, 68, of Naples, seeks compensation for the sexual abuse of their son, a 14-year-old boy Sperry molested on April 3, 2007, on the nature trail at Lely Barefoot Beach.

Sperry’s wife, Brenda, could not be reached for comment and no defense attorney is listed in court records, which show a subpoena was mailed to Sperry in prison on Oct. 29.

Frank Melchiore, a St. Petersburg attorney who represents the boy and his parents could not be reached.

The lawsuit, filed in Collier Circuit Court on Oct. 21, alleges Sperry committed assault, sexual assault and battery, child abuse, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud and concealment and other sinister acts upon the boy — a Michigan tourist who was looking for lizards on the nature trail on Lely Barefoot Beach.

The complaint alleges Sperry fraudulently induced the boy to a secluded area off the nature trail — saying there were lizards there — then restrained him and pulled the boy’s pants down so he could perform a sex act on him. That act, the lawsuit alleges, took away the boy’s childhood innocence for Sperry’s selfish, gruesome, sexual satisfaction.

The lawsuit notes that Sperry admitted those acts when he pleaded no contest on July 31 to lewd or lascivious battery and was later adjudicated guilty.

The lawsuit also seeks damages for the psychological injuries inflicted on the boy, his serious emotional injury, pain, suffering, mental anguish and depression, as well as the costs of his medical and psychological evaluation and treatment.

“This incident has affected me more mentally than physically,” the boy said at Sperry’s sentencing hearing in September, when he choked up and cried while detailing what occurred. “It’s changed the way I look at people. I have no trust in people. … Still, to this day, I can’t get it out of my mind.”

The boy’s parents seek compensation for the effects the injuries have had on their relationship with their son. “We no longer have the child that we had prior to this incident,” the boy’s mother had said at the sentencing hearing.

In addition to compensatory damages, which are meant to compensate someone for a loss, injury or harm, the lawsuit seeks punitive damages to punish, set an example and deter others from similar acts.

Sperry pleaded to the second-degree felony the day of his trial, when he was to use an insanity defense and medical experts’ testimony to claim he was involuntarily intoxicated by the Parkinson’s medication Mirapex and not in control of his actions when he molested the boy. A second charge involving an 18-year-old boy who escaped from Sperry had been dropped earlier.

After a two-day hearing, Hardt rejected medical experts’ testimony that Sperry was insane and sentenced him to 10 years. He’d faced up to 15.

Sperry is serving his sentence at the state Department of Corrections’ Reception and Medical Center in Union County, which serves male offenders and provides medical, hospital and psychiatric care.

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