The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General has announced that William Vollmar, a former Lancaster County sports medicine doctor, has pled to assaulting his patients including young adults and boys under the age of 18 years.
Sports Doc Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Patients
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The former physician pled to sexual assault, institutional sexual assault, and indecent assault. The plea results from his assaults on six former patients.
Judge Dennis E. Reinaker imposed Vollmar’s sentence after accepting the plea. Judge Reinaker sentenced Vollmar to serve 9.5 to 20 years in a state correctional institution. As part of the plea, Vollmar must register as a sex offender. He must also surrender his license to practice medicine. His medical license was suspended in April 2019 after he was initially charged with indecent assault.
Vollmar’s victims included young adults and boys under the age of 18. During medical appointments, Vollmar would inappropriately touch the victims’ genitals without consent. On numerous occasions, his “treatments” would include a “sports massage.” During the “massage” he would sexually assault the victim. On one occasion, during a “massage” on a 17-year-old victim, Vollmar began performing oral sex.
According to an initial complaint, Vollmar worked as a sports medicine physician at Stephen G. Diamantoni, M.D. and Associates Family Practice in Lancaster County from 1992 until 2019. Vollmar also had contracts with the following school districts: Middletown School District, Lampeter-Strasberg School District, Pequea Valley School District, Lancaster Country Day School, Conestoga Valley School District, Octorara Area School District, Solanco School District, and Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.
He was also a medical support member for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) for district and state athletic competitions and a member of the PIAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro said, “Over the course of our investigation, brave survivors came forward to report disturbing sexual assaults by the defendant in both high school facilities and in Vollmar’s home.”
Shapiro continued, “Vollmar will go to prison and spend the rest of his life as a registered sex offender, but for many survivors, reporting acts of abuse is incredibly difficult. My Office will continue to stand up for survivors of sexual assault and hold perpetrators accountable.”
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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