A fake Melbourne gynaecologist is due to be sentenced on Thursday after he passed himself off as fertility specialist for 10 years, fleecing patients of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Raffaele Di Paolo, 61, has pleaded guilty to and been found guilty of more than 50 offences including procuring sexual penetration by fraud, assault, indecent assault and obtaining property by deception.
There were more than 30 victims, one of whom said the treatments left her wanting to die.
Di Paolo pretended to be a medical practitioner who had worked in Italy and at the Melbourne-based Monash IVF fertility clinic before starting his own natural infertility therapies centre.
The County Court of Victoria was previously told that although he attended university in both Melbourne and Rome, he was never awarded a tertiary qualification.
Di Paolo also tried but failed to join Monash IVF in the 1990s before registering his own company.
His treatments included ultrasounds, taking unlabelled blood samples, and injecting women with homeopathic substances from Germany.
Nineteen of Di Paolo's patients were told they were pregnant when they were not.
Prosecutors have claimed he ripped off patients more than $385,000 but Di Paolo rejects some of the costs.
Di Paolo, who is in custody, is scheduled to be sentenced by County Court judge Bill Stuart on Thursday.
