Over 100 child porn charges dropped after former Children’s Hospital doctor pleads guilty

GREENE COUNTY — A former Dayton Children’s Hospital doctor charged with 151 felonies had all but six charges dropped in a plea deal that will have him serving potential prison time.

Gregory Ramey, 71, now of Columbus, was previously charged with 145 charges related to child porn and six counts of endangering children in a separate case. The plea deal filed in Greene County Common Pleas Court Wednesday shows Ramey pleading guilty to six counts of endangering children and a single count of tampering with evidence.

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Ramey had turned himself in after he was indicted on the charges last February and bonded out of jail.

As part of the plea, Ramey will remain on GPS monitoring, but will no longer be under house arrest. He also is not allowed to have any unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 18, court records show.

“This egregious abuse of the patients’ trust, not to mention the publics’ trust, from a doctor is gut-wrenchingly horrible,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said at the time of Ramey’s indictment. “Young children are innocent, sweet and trusting – vulnerably fragile and in need of special protection.”

“We certainly have everything we need for this indictment and that should be enough to make sure that he stays away for a good long time,” Yost told News Center 7 previously.

As part of the plea Ramey faces up to 21 years in prison, however there is no mandatory prison term for any of the charges he was convicted on, court records show. He also faces a fine of up to $70,000.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office handled the prosecution in the case, according to current Greene County Prosecutor David Hayes. Hayes said the case began under his predecessor Stephen Haller two years ago and a special prosecutor from the Ohio AG’s Office was requested to handle the case in Greene County court.

“These are always difficult cases. In this case, he admitted guilt and agreed to felony charges. He will rightfully lose his medical license and no one will ever trust him again,” Yost said in an emailed statement to News Center 7 Friday afternoon.

Ramey’s attorney Jon Paul Rion previously told News Center 7 the former children’s psychologist “is actually innocent of all these charges.” News Center 7 is working to speak with Rion following the plea agreement.

Ramey is a former Dayton Children’s Hospital child psychologist and the hospital said “we were blindsided by the allegations of inappropriate behavior in his personal life. Nothing in the performance of his professional role created any suspicions.”

“We are shocked and deeply troubled by these allegations, which are in stark contrast to our mission and core values,” Dayton Children’s said in a statement.

Ramey started at Dayton Children’s in 1979. The well-known pediatric psychologist was one of the public faces of Dayton Children’s, writing a weekly parenting column in the Dayton Daily News that was distributed on the New York Times wire service, and making frequent appearances in local and outside media.

Sentencing for Ramey is set for Nov. 18 at 2 p.m. in Greene County court.

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