A podiatrist from Chicora was indicted on numerous charges alleging he sexually assaulted 11 female patients and the niece of another patient and prescribed excessive amounts of pain killers that led some to addiction.

Dr. Matthew James Sabo, 48, who created The Foot and Ankle Wellness Center of Western Pennsylvania in 2007, was indicted on felony and misdemeanor charges alleging misconduct from 2011 through 2021 at his offices in Butler, Armstrong and Mercer counties that are among the five offices he operates.

He employed three other podiatrists as well as nurses and other staff.

At his preliminary arraignment Thursday before District Judge J. Gary Decomo in Ford City, Sabo was released on $100,000 unsecured bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9.

An investigating grand jury convened by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court indicted Sabo on June 22. Supervising Judge Anthony Mariani accepted the presentment June 23.

The jury heard testimony from the patients, the niece and another podiatrist who served as an expert witness. None of the witnesses were identified by name in the indictment.

The case was brought to the attention of the attorney general’s office by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigator who received a sexual misconduct complaint in December 2019 from one of Sabo’s patients, according to the indictment.

The first patient who testified told the jury that Sabo grabbed her buttocks while hugging her during one appointment at his Butler office and kissed her and placed her hand on his crotch during another appointment, according to the indictment. The incidents took place in early 2021 after he performed surgery on her foot in January that year.

She said she didn’t report the last incident to the office because Sabo’s wife was the office manager, but she eventually called police after learning through a media report that another patient made a similar complaint, according to the indictment.

The niece of a patient testified that on June 13, 2019, Sabo asked her if he could touch her breasts and then touched them while she was waiting in the waiting room of his Ford City office for her aunt’s X-rays to be completed, according to the indictment.

Another patient told the jury that she received monthly prescriptions of the opioids hydrocodone bitartrate-acetaminophen or oxycodone HCL-acetaminophen with morphine milligram equivalent (MME) ranging from 40 to 180 while Sabo treated her for about six years beginning in May 2013, according to the indictment.

Dr. Thomas Pfennigwerth, a podiatrist in Venango County, who was retained as an expert, testified that prescribing pain medication with an MME over 50 should be done with documentation and justification in the patient’s file, and an MME greater than 90 should be prescribed only in extreme circumstances.

That patient said the medication began making her sick and she asked Sabo to lower her prescription. She said she became addicted and weaned herself off of the pain medication.

In 2018 or 2019, she said he would regularly kiss her and touch her buttocks and breasts, and reached down her pants and placed her hand down his pants on other appointments at his Butler office, according to the indictment. She said she believed that she would have been removed from the practice if she complained about him.

A third patient testified that she became addicted to the oxycodone HCL-acetaminophen MME 90 that Sabo prescribed monthly from 2015 through Sept. 1, 2020, according to the indictment.

During that approximate time period, Sabo began grabbing her breasts over her shirt and kissing her during every appointment at his offices in Butler, Kittanning and Ford City, but she believed he would stop prescribing the medication if she complained, according to the indictment.

A fourth patient who was treated at Sabo’s Grove City office testified that she never returned for another appointment after he grabbed her breasts during an April 9, 2021 appointment, according to the indictment. She said she told her husband what happened later that day and reported the incident to police.

Medical records for a fifth patient revealed that Sabo gave her prescriptions for hydrocodone bitartrate-acetaminophen and oxycodone HCL-acetaminophen with MMEs ranging from 60 to 180 from 2015 through January 2020, according to the indictment.

At appointments at his offices in Ford City and Butler from 2017 until she was discharged in 2020, she said he would hug her tightly, and touch her breasts over her shirt and under her clothes, according to the indictment. She said she believed Sabo would stop providing the medication if she complained.

A sixth woman who became a patient in 2013 and saw Sabo at his Butler and Ford City offices, said he began prescribing hydrocodone bitartrate-acetaminophen with an MME between 22.5 and 45 in October 2017.

The initial prescription was for 90 tablets per month, but the number increased to 180 after he began slapping her rear when she walked out of the examination room and touching her breasts when hugging her, according to the indictment. She said she became addicted, but didn’t complain about Sabo because he would end the prescriptions if she had.

Sabo prescribed fentanyl, hydrocodone bitartrate-acetaminophen and oxycodone HCL-acetaminophen in MMEs ranging from 120 to 270, made inappropriate comments and had inappropriate contact with another female patient in 2009, according to the indictment.

The other patients gave similar testimony. Most said the inappropriate behavior began months or years after Sabo began treating them.

After reviewing the medical records of six of the patients, Pfennigwerth said “no responsible segment of the podiatric medical profession, that Dr. Sabo practices within, would find these opioid prescribing practices acceptable under any circumstances,” according to the indictment.

He said Sabo prescribed the “holy trinity” combination of medications that includes opioids, soma and benzodiazepines to two of the patients. He said prescribing all three at the same time greatly increases the risk of overdose.