What could get the doctor’s child porn charges dropped also could cost him his license | Miami Herald

The child pornography charges facing Miami doctor Ignacio Calvo are fading away — as is Calvo's medical license.

Calvo is 90 and has Alzheimer's disease, according to Florida Department of Health discipline documents.

An Emergency Restriction Order (ERO) prohibits Calvo from further practicing medicine until a neuropsychological evaluator tells the Department of Health it's safe for Calvo to do so.

Despite his age, Calvo still held staff privileges at Hialeah Hospital, Coral Gables Hospital, University of Miami Hospital, Palm Springs General Hospital and Columbia Kendall Medical Center.

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But while the Department of Health goes through the long process of removing a 90-year-old doctor's license, the same exams have been used to declare Calvo incompetent to stand trial on the child pornography charges from last year.

Calvo faced 20 counts of various child pornography possession and transmission charges. After police arrested Calvo at his Brickell penthouse on June 16, 2017, cops said he admitted he had downloaded the child pornography years before.

Calvo posted $80,000 bond on June 21, then was ordered to undergo a psychological examination to determine whether he had the competence to stand trial.

On July 7, the Department of Health's administrative complaint says Calvo's wife told psychologist Dr. Michael Scott that her husband "frequently required things to be repeated or asked the same thing over and over" and "had frequent problems remembering appointments, family occasions and holidays, and sometimes got lost while walking or driving in familiar places."

Scott diagnosed Calvo as having major neurocognitive disorder/dementia and persistent depressive disorder with symptoms that indicated Alzheimer's dementia and a vascular dementia.

"Dr. Scott opined that cognitive deficits such as Respondent's are not typically reversible and usually worsen over time," the ERO says.

Four days later, Dr. Gonzalo Yanez agreed with Scott about the Alzheimer's and the prognosis. Dr. Manuel Alvarez, after a September exam, ruled Calvo "incompetent to stand a criminal trial based upon a combination of Alzheimer's Dementia and unspecified depressive disorder" and after seeing Calvo's brain atrophy on an MRI, "the likelihood of significant improvement, even with aggressive treatment, is unlikely."

After that diagnosis and the bleak prognosis, prosecutors decided not to file charges on 10 of the counts against Calvo and "found incompetent" on the nine child porn possession and one child porn transmission charges.