The Pantops-area doctor arrested last Friday on five felonies related to allegedly raping and sexually assaulting his patients will be released from jail on a $50,000 bond.
A mass of friends and family showed in support of Mark Hormuz Dean, the Albemarle Pain Management Associates Clinic physician, and sat shoulder to shoulder in the crowded courtroom.
Several witnesses, including Dean’s father-in-law and a friend who also was a patient, testified about the character of the man who has been indicted on two counts of rape, two counts of object sexual penetration and one count of forcible sodomy.
Since his January 5 arrest, prosecutor Darby Lowe said five additional victims have come forward.
“When he’s not working, he’s constantly with his children,” said Peter Pellechia, the father of Dean’s wife and a retired NYPD homicide investigator. “He takes them and they go fishing.”
Dean is married to Stacy Pellechia Dean, an adjunct instructor at UVA’s Curry School of Education, and the couple lives in an Ednam Forest with two kids who are 15 and 13 years old, according to Pellechia’s testimony. The Deans purchased the house last year for $1.35 million, according to county property records.
Derrick Stone, the director of software development for the UVA Health System, told the judge that Dean often brings his children to Stone’s home for spiritual education classes on the religion they both share, called Baha’i, which teaches the unity of all people and the worth of all religions.
Stone, like the other witnesses who testified, said he was shocked to learn of the allegations against Dean.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I immediately reached out to see how I could help.”
The doctor was granted a $50,000 bond on the condition that he wears an ankle monitor, doesn’t leave his home and has no contact with his patients or staff.
Though the prosecutor argued that Dean has family in Florida and is considered a flight risk, defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana reminded the judge that several witnesses noted the doctor’s commitment to his family.
“People generally don’t just pick up and abandon a wife and kids,” she said.