For years, Dr. Brian Acacio’s identify had appreciable cachet amongst California {couples} who have been making an attempt to start out a household.
Acacio boasted having a number of the highest IVF success charges in Southern California. His evaluations have been stellar. Different medical doctors advisable him. And testimonials from former sufferers advised tales of goals come true after years of making an attempt for a kid.
What his sufferers didn’t know, in accordance with authorized filings, is that Acacio’s medical license was suspended by the California Medical Board in December following accusations that he was utilizing cocaine and board-ordered psychological testing that exposed a psychological situation that impaired his capability to apply drugs.
Twenty-six {couples} from throughout California filed a civil lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court docket on Tuesday alleging that Acacio failed to tell them of his license suspension, continued to apply drugs and moved their embryos with out consent from his facility in Laguna Niguel to his workplace in Bakersfield.
Many sufferers who spent 1000’s of {dollars} for fertility therapies found their embryos had been moved solely once they tried to schedule a switch, the medical process that’s the last step within the IVF course of. Others realized of the relocation by social media or from different sufferers, mentioned legal professional Benjamin Ikuta, who’s representing the {couples}.
“Our first and most vital aim is the lawful, expeditious however protected switch of those embryos again to the place they belong,” Ikuta mentioned. “He’s stolen these folks’s embryos. He’s held their households primarily hostage, and we wish solutions.”
Acacio couldn’t instantly be reached for remark. A message left at his workplace in Bakersfield was not returned.
Monique Santos, a affected person of Dr. Brian Acacio, and her husband, Allen, converse to the media Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Monique Santos and her husband, Allen, tried unsuccessfully to start out a household for years earlier than they sought Acacio’s assist.
Final August, Santos underwent egg retrieval that resulted in three viable embryos. In early November, Acacio transferred one of many fertilized embryos. The couple had hoped to welcome a son, however the process didn’t lead to a being pregnant, she mentioned.
The couple was upset. However they vowed to strive once more and needed to take action rapidly. Their December switch was postponed, and the couple was given shifting explanations for the delay, they mentioned. Finally, they have been advised the physician had a household emergency.
On the time of Santos’ egg retrieval, Acacio had been beneath investigation by the state medical board for months, information present.
“It simply made me really feel nearly violated as a result of I didn’t know something that was occurring,” Santos mentioned as she fought again tears throughout a information convention Tuesday. “I simply desire a child, truthfully. It’s simply so arduous.”
In late 2024, the medical board acquired a grievance alleging that Acacio was a every day cocaine person. In February 2025, investigators visited Acacio’s workplace to interview him and request a urine pattern, which he refused to offer. He admitted to utilizing cocaine “roughly thrice together with his ex-girlfriend,” in accordance with medical board paperwork.
Months later, a psychiatrist evaluated Acacio on the behest of the medical board and located he has a “psychological situation affecting his capability to apply drugs safely,” in accordance with the doc.
In early October, Acacio agreed to an interim order imposing restrictions on his license. The order required that he abstain from alcohol and managed substances that weren’t prescribed to him, undergo random drug testing and work with a psychiatrist who focuses on habit drugs.
Then, on Dec. 30, the medical board prohibited Acacio from working towards drugs after he examined constructive for marijuana, information present.
The lawsuit alleges that Acacio carried out an ultrasound on not less than one affected person after his license was suspended.
Across the similar time, Acacio was compelled to shut his medical apply in Orange County and relocate his clinic to Bakersfield. Court docket information present that Acacio, together with two different medical doctors, didn’t pay greater than $243,000 in hire on the Laguna Niguel workplace for roughly a 12 months.
A consultant for Acacio’s apply advised a pair through e-mail that storage tanks with the embryos have been moved from Laguna Niguel to his workplace in Bakersfield on Dec. 17, in accordance with the lawsuit.
Attorneys allege that Acacio refused to return his sufferers’ embryos until they signed a “sweeping” launch settlement that might protect his clinic from any legal responsibility for potential harm to the organic materials.
The {couples} named within the lawsuit mentioned they’re not sure whether or not their embryos are even viable. Cryopreserved embryos should stay at a constant temperature, and transporting them, even beneath optimum circumstances, introduces some threat, in accordance with the lawsuit.
“I’m devastated,” mentioned Berenice Cervantes, one other of Acacio’s sufferers. “I used to be so looking forward to this, and I did my due diligence. I checked out the perfect medical doctors within the space and Dr. Acacio’s identify saved arising and so I believed, ‘You possibly can’t go flawed with that.’”
