Patient asks police to investigate Richland doctor accused of inappropriate conduct

A criminal complaint has been filed with the Richland Police Department related to sexual abuse allegations against Dr. Mark Mulholland as he or Kadlec Regional Medical Center face 12 civil lawsuits.

The police complaint was filed by a patient in August, and it followed a complaint by a different Mulholland patient in 2023.

Richland police confirmed to the Tri-City Herald that the complaint was filed but a copy was not immediately available. The woman is also working with attorneys in Seattle and Chicago on a civil suit.

The 2023, a similar police complaint by another woman was dismissed “on the basis that the alleged incident occurred during a medical examination,” according to a Richland Police Department case report included in a civil lawsuit filed last month by that patient.

The lawsuit, like four others filed by attorneys Elizabeth Hanley in Seattle with Tamara Holder of Tamara Holder Law in Chicago, accuses Mulholland and his employers of failing to protect patients despite numerous complaints about his behavior.

Others named in the case include Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland; Providence, which owns Kadlec; and Kadlec Clinic—Associated Physicians for Women, an obstetrics and gynecological clinic that Kadlec acquired in 2016.

Kadlec told the Herald that it cannot comment on pending litigation and that Mulholland is not currently practicing at its ob/gyn clinic.

Mulholland’s Seattle attorney also declined to comment on the civil or criminal allegations.

Patient filed police, state complaints

The woman who filed the 2023 police complaint said in a civil lawsuit that she had an appointment with Mulholland for pelvic pain and possible removal of an IUD.

She says that after Mulholland lifted a sheet covering her he used both hands to squeeze her buttocks, according to a court document filed in King County Superior Court. King County is the location of Providence’s Washington operations.

She froze in shock, the court document said.

Then Mulholland conducted an internal exam with his fingers that alarmed her. It was rough and aggressive compared to exams she had previously had with other ob/gyn doctors and Mulholland maintained eye contact with her during the exam, the court document said.

At one point, she screamed out in pain, she said. The nurse who was in the room at a computer did not turn around, the court document said.

When the exam was finished, Mulholland told her through a Spanish-language interpreter that she would need surgery.

“I’m excited to meet with your vagina again,” he said, and then quickly told the interpreter not to translate that, according to a court document. However, the patient knew enough English to understand what he said, according to the court document.

The patient had extreme pain from the exam that lasted a week and went to a different clinic for treatment of the pain, according to the court document.

There she refused another exam because she “felt so afraid and traumatized” by Mulholland’s exam, she said.

The patient reported Mulholland’s treatment to a supervisor at the Kadlec clinic. The supervisor said she would call her back with a report on their investigation, but she received no follow-up call, according to the court document.

She next went to the Richland Police Department but no charges were filed. She also filed a complaint with the Washington Medical Commission.

Dr. Mulholland charged by WA commission

Earlier this year, the commission charged Mulholland with unprofessional conduct, citing the experiences of three patients from 2022-24. The patients were not named in the report.

More complaints to the medical commission have been made since then, according to attorneys who have filed civil cases. No reply from Mulholland to the medical commission has been made public.

The medical commission said in the April 2024 statement of charges that Mulholland had made inappropriate comments about patients’ physical appearances, including body-shaming patients who were overweight and making implied sexual comments about patients’ vaginas.

In one case he was accused of pulling a patient’s pants down without asking for permission and not draping the patient.

He also was accused of making inappropriate comments to staff, including asking them to show him their breasts, according to the statement of charges.

“Respondents’ behaviors toward patients and staff have often been rationalized, normalized and minimized, resulting in patient and staff complaints being dismissed and not taken seriously,” said the statement of charges.

Complaints go unanswered

In a different lawsuit filed by attorneys Holder and Hanley of Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender in Seattle, the patient said she had made multiple complaints about Mulholland’s actions but received no responses.

The woman, who filed a lawsuit as “Jane Doe 102,” said during a pre-operative appointment in October 2022 that Mulholland asked about her sex life. He then performed a pelvic exam without explaining the purpose and said she was “really tight in there,” according to the lawsuit.

The exam did not make sense and his comments were grotesque, she told the Tri-City Herald.

She did not complain immediately after discussing the appointment with her spouse because they thought it would adversely impact her medical care, including the upcoming surgery she needed, according to the lawsuit.

But after she was home recovering from the surgery that Mulholland performed, she called Kadlec’s patient relations department to alert them to the doctor’s behavior at her pre-operative appointment, she said.

The patient relations department said someone would call her. After two months with no response, she escalated her complaint.

She called Reza Kaleel, the Kadlec chief executive, and left a message, she said. Again, she received no call back, according to the lawsuit.

So she then started calling and leaving a message with the chief executive officer for Providence’s Northwest Region, Erik Wexler, she said.

She worked in the medical field and also contacted medical professionals she knew and trusted to get their take on her pre-operative appointment.

They agreed that Mulholland’s behavior at her pre-operative appointment was beneath the standard of care, inappropriate and constituted sexual assault, she told the Tri-City Herald.

One medical professional, after hearing a brief account of her concerns, asked if she was talking about Mulholland, even though she had not named him, she said.

She told the Herald that she asked him how he knew, and he said, “Everybody knows and nothing happens.”

She lost confidence that anything would be done about her concerns. And she was angry with Kadlec and Providence for employing Mulholland, she said.

“They have profited off of, you know, women who entrusted them with their most sensitive medical issues and are continuing to try and downplay the issue,” she said.

“And that upsets me because women will be less likely to come in for care, or they will be again indoctrinated into this culture that ‘OK, this is what ... we have to expect,” she said.

When she heard in July 2025 that Mulholland was being sued for alleged sexual abuse, she contacted an attorney.

Her lawsuit claims that numerous complaints had been made dating back to 2003 that Mulholland had been “administering supposed ‘treatment’ to female patients, without their informed consent, which lacked medical need or purpose, fell below the standard of care for a reasonably prudent provider in the community, and amounted in some instances to sex discrimination or assault.”

“It’s becoming clear that Dr. Mulholland was serially abusing his patients, and Kadlec knew about it for years,” said attorney Mallory Allen, a partner at Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala in Seattle, which has also filed lawsuits against Kadlec and Providence.

A Kennewick law firm, Tamaki Law, also is investigating claims regarding Mulholland.

This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 3:50 PM.