Dr. Elizabeth Morgan

Some in this news group may wonder what happened to Dr. Elizabeth
Morgan, the Washington, D.C. plastic surgeon who falsely accused her
ex-husband of abusing their daughter, hid the daughter from her father and
alienated the daughter from him, defied court orders, and then had two
special statutes passed in the U.S. Congress to protect her from the legal
consequences of her own actions. The following Washington Post article
updates the situation.


The Doctor Is Out and Heading West
By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Thursday, November 10, 2005; Page C3

Elizabeth Morgan , the Washington plastic surgeon who spent two years in
prison for defying court orders in an infamous 1980s custody battle, is once
again following her only child to exotic lands.

Last time it was New Zealand, where Morgan hid her daughter from ex-husband
Eric Foretic h . This time it's Los Angeles, where the now 23-year-old Ellen
Morgan (ne Hilary Foretich) is trying to start an acting career.

"She is alone and we have no family there," Morgan wrote in a recent letter
to patients announcing plans to leave her Chevy Chase practice in February.
"She has been asking me to move to Los Angeles. I have spent months
considering this. I love my patients but my daughter must come first."

The custody fight that Morgan and Foretich, an oral surgeon, waged over
their infant daughter after their 1982 divorce went nuclear in 1985 when
Morgan charged her ex with sexually abusing the child. Foretich denied it,
and the courts granted him visitation rights after finding no evidence of
abuse. In 1987 the child vanished, and Morgan went to jail rather than tell
authorities where her daughter was. She was released in 1989 by a bill
pushed by sympathetic lawmakers and joined her daughter and parents in New
Zealand.

The family returned here in 1997, thanks to yet another act of Congress --
later ruled unconstitutional -- that freed them from court oversight. Morgan
opened a new practice and her daughter attended American University. She
never drifted far from the headlines: In 2002 she testified in the case of
Elsa Newman, a Bethesda lawyer accused of conspiring to kill her ex-husband
after seeking Morgan's advice in her own custody battle.

Reached at her home, Morgan would not elaborate on her moving plans, citing
her daughter's privacy: "I really appreciate your interest, but at the
moment I don't feel like I can talk about it."

So no word on whether she'll open a practice in Los Angeles, where there's a
lot of competition for her brand of medicine -- but, hey, a lot of demand,
too.