By Mike Caputo
Earlier this month, Vour Clarke of St. Albans, Queens, a dental assistant in Lynbrook, got a call from a man identifying himself as "Alan Epstein." He told Clarke he was a urologist setting up a new practice in the Five Towns, and he was looking for assistants. Believing at first that the man was calling on behalf of her own doctor, who was out of town, Clarke gave "Epstein" her cell phone number.
The man called her as often as 10 times a day after their first conversation, and as they talked, Clarke grew suspicious. He told her he was looking for women to meet with doctors in hotels for sexual encounters, Clarke recounted. Though she was alarmed, she asked the man questions to find out more about him. At one point, she said, he offered her $50 an hour, double his original offer. He also requested a meeting in a Lynbrook hotel, and asked Clarke if she would feel more inclined to do what he described if she "did it to him first."
In the meantime, a co-worker remembered a former patient whose husband, Alan Psaty, had been arrested and sentenced to jail after similar incidents. In fact, there had been a story about the man in the May 11, 2006, issue of the Herald.
After reading the story, Clarke called the police to report the harassment, and then she called the Herald. "He seems like a nut, which scares the crap out of me," Clarke said.
She would not say whether Psaty's wife was once a patient at the practice.
Psaty, a registered Level III sex offender in Nassau County, was arrested in November 2005 after Queens Vice Enforcement authorities sent an undercover female police officer to pose as a job seeker and meet with Psaty. He eventually pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including practicing medicing without a license and aggravated sexual assault, and was sentenced to six months in prison and 10 years' probation on May 1, 2006.
When Clarke notified Lynbrook police about the harassing phone calls, she said that an officer told her there was little police could do. She told the Herald that she was advised only to log the time, date and content of a harassing call immediately after it is received. Then she was instructed to report those findings to the police.
Calls to the Lynbrook Police Department seeking an explanation of department protocol in cases of phone harassment were not returned.
Psaty's Nassau County Police Department probation officer, who monitors Psaty's whereabouts via an electronic tracking device, did not seem surprised when told of Clarke's complaint. The officer recalled a recent incident in which Psaty went into a Five Towns pet store and asked a female employee if she wanted to be one of his "assistants." "He can't control himself," said the officer. "We are trying the best we can with him."
According to Psaty's probation officer, his actions may scare people, but he poses no real danger. "It's obviously very annoying and frightening, but I have never known him to use any force or anything," the officer said.
If Psaty violates probation within five years, he faces a sentence of 2 2/3 to eight years in prison.
Comments about this story? MCaputo@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
