Doctor Receives Two Years for Abortifacient-filled Syringe Attack

By Dave Andrusko

Dr. Stephen Pack, a Bronx physician who attempted to abort his pregnant girlfriend's baby by stabbing her with a drug-filled syringe, was sentenced April 20 to two years in jail for his attack on Joy Schepis. Fortunately, Pack's brutal assault failed and Schepis delivered Michael David Mitchell November 28.

Although Pack used methotrexate, a powerful anti-cancer drug sometimes used as an abortifacient, young Michael was born healthy. At the time of the April 14, 2000, assault, Pack repeatedly stabbed Schepis in the thigh and buttocks with the syringe after telling her, "I'm giving you an abortion!"

Pack copped a plea in negotiations with prosecutors in January. He came to the courtroom of the Bronx Supreme Court with an unidentified clergyman in tow. According to the New York Post, he "apologized," an apology (not surprisingly) Schepis found insincere.

Prior to the plea agreement, Pack could have received up to seven years in prison for his vicious attack in the parking lot of Montefiore Hospital. The agreement allowed for a three-year sentence but Justice Ira Globerman limited the sentence to two years.

Pack pled guilty to assault and "committing an abortional act" on Schepis, who was a nurse. Pack, at the time a married father of two, and Schepis, a divorced mother of a two-year-old boy, both worked at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, and had a brief affair that left Schepis pregnant. When she refused to abort the baby, police say, Pack confronted Schepis outside the hospital. Pack pulled out a hypodermic needle filled with methotrexate and stabbed Schepis repeatedly.

A week after the attack, Schepis told the Post, "He tried to kill our unborn child." She then added, "I relive it in my mind every moment. I relive it over and over again. And when I sleep, the nightmares start. I'm physically and emotionally sick."

The unborn baby was only six to eight weeks old at the time. Sonograms conducted after the assault showed that the baby's heart was still beating, but it was not known if the methotrexate would cause a miscarriage or birth defects.

"It's not up to me," Schepis told the New York Daily News. "It's up to God what happens to my child." Subsequent sonograms showed that the baby continued to grow, and that the child was a boy. Schepis told the Post that she chose the name Michael for the " archangel who fought off Satan."

Prior to sentencing, Pack apologized for the attack. He told the court that he "believed at the time" that what he did "was proper and necessary," according to the Post. "I didn't want to hurt her. After hundreds of hours of therapy...I fully understand that my judgement at the time was wrong, that what I did was wrong, and I'm very sorry."

During the sentencing Schepis appeared "near tears," according to the April 21 Post. "I don't think he's really sorry for anything, except that he's going to jail," she said. "My son looks exactly like his father, but that's O.K. I love my son more than anything in the world, he's mine."