Phone messages left Wednesday evening at Brigham's home and clinic in Voorhees were not immediately returned. Nor were phone messages left at the home and office of his Washington lawyer, Richard Westling.
Wednesday's action occurred as Brigham faces a fresh volley of legal problems ranging from regulatory actions in several states to liens from the IRS.
Since 1992, Brigham's medical license has been revoked in Florida and New York, relinquished amid an investigation in Pennsylvania, and suspended for three years in New Jersey, the only state where he is currently permitted to practice medicine.
The New Jersey filing stemmed from an August case reported in The Inquirer on Friday. That case involved a botched abortion on an 18-year-old woman who was in her 21st week of pregnancy.
Referred to only as "D.B.," she was taken from Brigham's Voorhees clinic to another facility he owns in Elkton, Md., where the surgical procedure was done.
The teenager "suffered a uterine perforation and small bowel injury" that were so severe and life-threatening that she had to be airlifted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. A Hopkins doctor later filed a complaint against the abortion provider.
The care that Brigham gave to that patient and others "constituted gross negligence," the New Jersey complaint states.
Brigham has never been licensed in Maryland, and is not authorized in New Jersey to perform abortions after 18 weeks of pregnancy, the complaint says.
Despite that, the complaint alleges, Brigham performed about 50 terminations of pregnancy between January and August 2010 in the Elkton office. Late last month, Brigham was charged with doing late-term abortions in Maryland.
Brigham would initiate abortions in Voorhees and finish them surgically in Elkton. The two-step process was "part of a wide-scale pattern of practice whereby terminations of pregnancy that cannot be legally performed by Respondent Brigham in his New Jersey office are begun by him in New Jersey and completed in Maryland," the complaint said.
Besides "D.B.," the complaint cited two other women - "S.D., who was 25 weeks pregnant with twins," and "N.C.," who was more than 18 weeks pregnant. Both were taken by car from New Jersey to Maryland on Aug. 13.
"Brigham caused patient 'S.D.' and 'N.C.' to be transported out of New Jersey after their unlawful procedures were begun," the complaint alleges. "Fetal demise for both patients was 'initiated' in New Jersey."
Brigham also created false records, or asked others to make them, showing that the procedures in Maryland were done by physician George Shepard Jr. or an unlicensed medical school graduate, Kimberly Walker, according to the complaint. Both Shepard and Walker told authorities they did not perform any procedures, the complaint says.
Unlicensed medical practice by Brigham, 54, and his employees has been a recurring problem over the last two decades, regulatory records show.
Brigham also has a history of performing late-term abortions that leave patients with life-threatening complications, and of not paying state and federal employment taxes.
The Maryland Board of Medicine and Elkton police launched an investigation after receiving several complaints in August, including one from the 18-year-old patient who was critically injured there.
That investigation led the police to find 35 frozen fetuses, several just a few weeks shy of full term, from a freezer in the Elkton facility. Because the authorities could not find medical records for the abortions, they subsequently searched Brigham's Voorhees clinic with the cooperation of the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.
In July, the Pennsylvania Department of Health ruled that Brigham could no longer own abortion clinics in the state because he repeatedly employed unlicensed caregivers over the last 13 years. He is appealing the decision in Commonwealth Court.
In April, the IRS levied $234,536 worth of liens against Brigham for not paying payroll taxes.
Brigham now has about 15 clinics, although the exact number is unclear. Maryland investigators said he owns five in that state, but two (including Elkton) are not listed on the American Women's Services website.
Contact staff writer Josh Goldstein at 215-854-4733 or jgoldstein@phillynews.com.
Inquirer staff writer Don Sapatkin contributed to this article.
