Former professor sentenced to 16 months in prison

Justin Onzuka, 37, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and two years probation on April 1, 2011 after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual assault. A former McMaster hospital physician, Onzuka was charged by Hamilton police in August 2009. He was taken to court on the assault charges shortly thereafter.

In 1997, Onzuka made a videotape of a naked, unconscious, female patient who had been admitted to surgery. She had no knowledge of the incident until several years later, when police identified her in a pornographic video seized from the residence of Onzuka’s parents in Mississauga. In June 2005, Onzuka was the attending doctor in Hamilton Health Sciences ER, and treated a woman complaining of chest pains. He reportedly visited this woman at her home, administered excessive amounts of an alcoholic substance, then massaged her breasts.

Hamilton police believe that Onzuka has assaulted 14-17 other patients, but investigators have no way to verify any identities.

Onzuka’s medical license was suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ontario on May 7, 2008 after admitting to a sex addiction and abuse of pharmaceutical drugs. The information regarding the suspension of his medical license was legally withheld under the Regulated Health Professionals Act, 1991, and CPSO policy which states that “the CPSO is obliged to keep all information that comes to its knowledge confidential, and is not permitted to communicate this information to any other person unless a specific statutory exception applies.” Since Onzuka’s license was suspended on personal grounds and not as a result of medical or police investigations the information was not subject for release to institutions outside CPSO.

Onzuka was hired by Redeemer as a part-time professor for the 2008-2009 academic year, with ambitions to maintain a faculty position in the future.

Current biology major and Student Senate President, Joel Van Steenbergen, notes that “as a professor, Dr. Onzuka remained professional. He was informative and brought medical perspective to the class. It made the material more valid. His classes were fun, engaging, and hard. The way he taught was analogous to the way he taught medical students.”

Van Steenbergen had even been in discussion with Onzuka regarding summer research opportunities. “I wanted to do research on strokes, and I was proposing to do an independent study under the supervision of Dr. Onzuka, in the hope that it could be published in a medical sciences journal.”

Onzuka was a professor of biology at Redeemer from September 2008 until April 2009. His contract was not renewed after the investigation was made public in August 2009. Redeemer University College’s hiring policy requires termination of any staff or faculty member being formally investigated by police.

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