CORRECTION

A story on Page 1B Wednesday about a lawsuit alleging that UNC-Chapel Hill pediatrician Mel Levine abused patients decades ago in Boston incorrectly said the lawsuit did not explain why five accusers waited to file their complaints. The lawsuit said one man, identified as John Doe No. 5, had been unable to recall and understand the alleged abuse until February 2006.

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A civil lawsuit filed this week in Boston accuses an adjunct professor of pediatrics at UNC-Chapel Hill of sexually abusing patients decades ago.

Dr. Melvin Levine, a faculty member at UNC-CH's Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning and writer of childhood development books who has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," has been accused of molesting seven patients, said a Boston lawyer who has filed lawsuits against him on behalf of five of the men.

Efforts to reach Levine at his home in Rougemont, and through a nonprofit institute he co-founded, were unsuccessful late Tuesday.

In a statement to The Boston Globe, a man identified as Levine's attorney said the doctor is innocent.

"Dr. Mel Levine has provided pediatric care to more than 15,000 children over 40 years and categorically denies that he has ever been abusive in any way toward any patient," the Globe reported Edward Mahoney saying in a statement. "He adamantly denies these claims. Dr. Levine is distressed about the distorted or misinterpreted memories from decades past and questions the motivations."

In a statement, UNC Health Care said Levine retired from full-time work at the university in 2006 and has an unpaid professorship in the department of pediatrics. He sees patients twice a month, and no complaints have been made regarding his work at UNC-CH, the university said.

Carmen Durso, a lawyer who specializes in lawsuits involving sexual abuse, said Tuesday that he first sued Levine in 2005 and that the case has not been resolved. Since then, he said, other people have come to him with similar stories.

"Everybody I've talked to talks about similar methods of operation," Durso said. "They describe the same kind of thing. They're in there for psychological conditions, ... and Dr. Levine is nonetheless conducting a physical examination of each kid, and that physical exam includes both examining and manipulating their genitals.

"There's no medical reason for a genital examination for ADHD," Durso said, referring to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Durso said the number of plaintiffs prompted him to hold a news conference Monday, seeking other people with information about Levine. All of the men referenced in one of the lawsuits, a copy of which Durso provided, said Levine abused them when they were children in his care at Boston's Children's Hospital, which also is named as a defendant.

17-year period cited

The complaint accuses Levine of molesting boys over a period of more than 17 years, beginning in 1967. The lawsuit does not explain why Durso's clients waited so long to file their complaints.

Durso represents five men separately suing Levine, and said they are all unknown to each other. Two other men have accused Levine of abusing them, Durso said. One complained to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, Durso said. The other sued but the case was dismissed, he said.

Levine, 68, has no blemishes on his public record at the N.C. Medical Board, which licenses and disciplines doctors. According to the board's files, Levine received his medical degree from Harvard in 1966.

He worked at Children's Hospital until 1985, and for 14 years was chief of its division of ambulatory pediatrics. He moved to North Carolina in the mid 1980s, and in 1995 co-founded All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit organization funded by financier Charles Schwab. The organization's Web site says its goal is to educate teachers, students, parents and doctors about differences in learning, and help them develop individual plans for struggling students to succeed.

In 1999, Levine was named a Tar Heel of the Week in The News & Observer.

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