Germantown doctor pleads guilty to sexual battery

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MONTGOMERY COUNTY — A Germantown doctor has pleaded guilty to 11 counts of sexual battery that involved three different victims.

Noel J. Watson, 76, appeared in court Monday afternoon, where he entered the plea agreement. Watson will also surrender his medical license and will be labeled as a Tier III sex offender as part of his plea agreement. Watson will be sentenced at a later date, but agreed upon a sentencing range of 10-15 years.

The 11 counts of sexual battery involve three different victims, where each was substantially impaired and unable to consent to any sexual activity.

In October of 2020, a victim made a police report about a sexual relationship he had had with Watson when he was a minor. Two additional victims were identified and interviewed and were found to have also been sexually assaulted by Watson, according to a release from Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck, Jr.

The sexual assaults took place between 2005 and 2018.

The judge ordered Watson taken into custody on a $75,000 bond.

Watson was suspended July 14 after the medical board issued a notice of summary suspension to the doctor.

>> Case of Germantown doctor accused of teen sex abuse involving drugs in hands of prosecutor

State records show starting in 2006 or 2007 until at least 2014 he was accused of administering morphine and other medications without “legitimate therapeutic purposes” to one of the male teenage patients.

Watson is accused of engaging in sexual acts with the same patient, while the teen was under the influence of narcotics.

State medical board documents said the narcotics caused the patient “to become addicted” and that Watson “forced him to engage in sexual acts in order to continue to obtain the narcotics.”

The acts were said to have occurred at both the address of Watson’s practice and his home, according to property records and the police report.