WITNESS NOTED CHILD'S RESEMBLANCE TO DOCTOR

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992                   TAG: 9202130364
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By The Washington Post
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA                                LENGTH: Medium
WITNESS NOTED CHILD'S RESEMBLANCE TO DOCTOR
A woman testifying in the trial of Cecil Jacobson said Wednesday that she was elated when the former Fairfax County fertility doctor said he had found a sperm donor who resembled her husband and, after months of frustration, she was finally going to get pregnant.
But speaking to a hushed federal courtroom under the guise of a pseudonym, she told of her surprise 10 years ago when she and her husband sat down to look at pictures of their newborn daughter.
"We pulled them out of the envelope and we both went, `Whoa, who does she look like?' " the woman testified. "And we both had the same feeling - she looked a lot like Dr. Jacobson."
Six witnesses who dominated the third day of the fraud and perjury trial of Jacobson gave the first personal accounts of allegations that Jacobson used his own sperm, rather than an anonymous sperm bank, to inseminate patients.
The six witnesses said Jacobson had lied to them and was the biological father of 11 of their children, according to DNA tests. One woman also accused Jacobson of injecting her womb with his own sperm after promising to use her husband's.
The U.S. District Court was cloaked in an unusually tight security net Wednesday in an effort to protect the identity of the witnesses so their children would not see them on news reports and learn that Jacobson is their biological father.
The remarkable nature of the case was clearly evident in the courtroom, where at least two witnesses were disguised in wigs, and large signs with witnesses' pseudonyms were taped to the front of the witness stand to help prevent attorneys from slipping up and calling them by their real names.
U.S. District Judge James Cacheris told the jury before the witnesses appeared Wednesday that "the fact that they're using pseudonyms should not in any way influence your determination of guilt or innocent."
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy Bellows, the first of the six witnesses went step by step through her treatment with Jacobson eight years ago.
Although she and her husband were initially reluctant to consider artificial insemination, she said, Jacobson put her at ease and filled her with optimism about a university student he had chosen as a sperm donor.
"He said the person was fertile because he had children, he was happily married, was a religious man and was free of disease," said the woman, who was disguised in a blond wig. "He said he had a perfect match for my husband."
The woman explained that the physical characteristics were important because they wanted friends and family members to believe that the baby really was her husband's biological child.
She also asked Jacobson whether the donor had been used for several patients because she was worried that her child might meet another child fathered by the donor. But she said Jacobson reassured her that he would never risk such a possibility.
Under cross-examination from James Tate, one of Jacobson's attorneys, the woman acknowledged that she is happy with her child and that at one time she had only positive feelings toward Tate's client. "I felt the man was wonderful," she said. "He gave me a miracle I was told I'd never have."
Jacobson's attorney has said that his client used his own sperm on occasion, but only when donors failed to show up.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB