Clifford Merchant, a former Anchorage emergency room doctor, pleaded guilty last week to significantly reduced charges stemming from his abuse of four young girls.
The state's dismissal document shows 31 felonies from Merchant's indictment have been dropped. The charges he will be sentenced on include consolidated counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and child pornography possession, as well as a single charge of violating conditions of release.
On Friday, Merchant pleaded guilty to the charges. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Jack Smith set sentencing for Aug. 19 and ordered Merchant's previously posted $75,000 bond to go to the victims, according to notes from the change of plea hearing.
Merchant was also ordered to pay $25,000 to each of his four victims. Those payments don't bar them from suing their abuser in civil court.
Merchant, 67 at the time of his arrest, was a longtime doctor in Anchorage, having worked at Providence Alaska Medical Center's emergency department as a contract physician. The hospital said it suspended his physician privileges when it learned of the alleged crimes.
Alaska State Troopers learned of the abuse in July 2014, when a 12-year-old girl reported that she'd been touched inappropriately by Merchant. Investigators discovered a yearslong pattern of abuse of three girls who weren't yet teens. Merchant abused the girls at his home in South Anchorage and his cabin at Shell Lake near Skwentna. He was arrested in October that same year.
Despite the seriousness of the charges, a judge declined the state's request to raise Merchant's bail to $500,000 when it came to light that he had a fourth victim. He had paid the original bond amount and was awaiting his trial outside jail.
But police rearrested him about a year later when an FBI informant foiled his plan to kill two of his victims.
Court records indicate Merchant faces life in prison for the three charges. The 69-year-old could get up to 99 years for the child porn charge and 30 years on the sex abuse charge. His sentence could be lengthened due to the parties agreeing on a few aggravating factors, which make his crimes more heinous than similar cases.
The plea agreement offers new details about how the abuse happened.
Prosecutors say Merchant's sexual abuse of at least one of the victims was frequent, occurring as often as three times a week over the course of years. "The sexual abuse was often accomplished through the use of drugs or medicine," such as Valium and Ambien, and was supplied by Merchant's wife, Linda Merchant, according to the plea agreement.
Merchant came to care for two young girls he abused while their parents worked through financial and domestic problems. The girls would stay with Merchant for weeks and eventually months from 2001 to 2003, prosecutors said.
He also agreed as part of the plea deal that he had planned to hire a hitman named "The Bull" to kill two of his victims and their families, though the agreement indicates he called it off through the woman helping him set up the murders for hire.
The state has not charged Merchant with temporarily planning to kill his victims and others. The plea deal says the parties have agreed that no additional charges will be brought against Merchant.