Question: Whatever happened to the case of the Wahiawa physician accused of trying to hire a female patient to kill his ex-girlfriend?
Answer: Trial is scheduled for October for Dennis I. Ayon, 48, who is charged with criminal solicitation to commit murder. He is facing a possible 20-year prison term. He remains in custody unable to post $1 million bail.
Police arrested Ayon, an internist, on Nov. 8 after one of his patients, Linda Moore, told police he had asked her on Nov. 6 to kill his ex-girlfriend, with whom Ayon has a young son.
Ayon has countered that Moore is schizophrenic, "mixes delusions with reality" and is jealous because he rejected her romantic advances, according to reports of his court-appointed mental health examiners.
The examiners’ reports are in response to a state judge’s request for their opinions regarding Ayon’s mental fitness to stand trial and whether Ayon’s mental condition at the time of the alleged offense frees him from the legal consequences of his alleged actions.
All three examiners — psychological consultant Olaf K. Gitter, psychiatrist Leonard S. Jacobs and psychologist Duke E. Wagner — said Ayon is fit to stand trial. But none of them was able to offer an opinion regarding penal responsibility. They said Ayon refused to cooperate in their examinations and offered a version of events different from that offered by the prosecutor.
They also said Ayon refused to sign releases giving them access to his medical and psychiatric records even though he told staff at Oahu Community Correctional Center that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after seeing his father commit suicide when he was a boy and that he himself has twice attempted suicide.
Moore testified in a preliminary hearing in November that Ayon promised she would be rewarded if Moore harmed his ex-girlfriend.
Ayon described Moore as a high-maintenance patient who dropped in without an appointment, according to Wagner’s report.
Moore testified she believes one of the reasons Ayon solicited her is because he knew she is emotionally unstable and was taking antidepressants.
Ayon told Wagner that Moore had previously sent him a picture of herself with part of her body exposed and a card with lipstick on it asking him to be her valentine. On the day of her unscheduled visit, Ayon said, Moore brought him a small bouquet of red flowers and put her hand on his thigh three times, prompting him to move away.
Ayon said he blames his stress — from the loss of parental custody, his legal difficulties, and the loss of business, his home and car — on his ex-girlfriend.
He told Wagner he never asked anyone to harm his ex-girlfriend and doesn’t wish anything bad against her because it would hurt his son.
