Delaware, Doctor | featured news

A Delaware physician accused of waterboarding his 11-year-old stepdaughter says he is being persecuted by authorities because of a 2009 doctor abuse scandal in the state. Dr. Melvin Morse tells The Associated Press that he is the victim of what he called hysteria following the prosecution of pediatrician Earl Bradley. Bradley is serving 14 life sentences for abusing scores of his young patients over more than a decade.

A Delaware doctor and his wife were arrested this week after their daughter told authorities that she was punished by "waterboarding," police said. The 11-year-old girl told police that her father, pediatrician Melvin Morse, would hold her face under a running faucet causing the water to shoot up her nose, the Delaware State Police said. The punishments happened at least four times over a two-year period and the girl's mother, Pauline Morse, witnessed some of them and did nothing, police said.