How a Procedural Error Overturned a Former UCLA Gynecologist’s 11-Year Sentence

Over the course of a successful 35-year career, UCLA obstetrician-gynecologist James Mason Heaps developed a reputation as one of the university’s most esteemed doctors. At one time, he was reportedly the highest paid physician in the University of California (UC) system and had treated approximately 6,000 patients, many with cancer.

But in 2019, Heaps was charged with two counts of sexual battery, based on accusations from two patients who received care at a UCLA Health office in 2017 and 2018. Those accusations were the first of many.

In May 2021, three years after he retired, Heaps was indicted on 21 counts of sexual abuse offenses stemming from accusations by seven female patients. The charges covered a time span from 2011 to 2018, with accusations of egregious sexual misconduct. Eventually, the number of women who alleged abuse by Heaps would number in the hundreds.

Attorney John Manly, who represented more than 50 women in the Heaps case, tells A&E Crime + Investigation that the doctor “was doing horrific things to women with cancer,” including “unnecessary breast exams, touching women where they don’t want to be touched and using sexual appliances with no clinical reason.”

When Heaps went to trial in October 2022, several of his former patients testified. Heaps was found guilty on five of the 21 counts against him, including three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person.

Seven months later in April 2023, the disgraced doctor was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He also surrendered his medical license. Heaps’ accusers felt vindicated: Although they’d had to endure a lengthy, emotionally wrenching trial, the doctor who had abused them was headed to prison. Or so they thought.

Two years after the trial, as Heaps’ legal team prepared to appeal the verdict to the appellate court, an attorney stumbled upon a note from the jury’s foreman expressing concerns about one juror’s English language proficiency. The juror in question, Juror No. 15, was an alternate who’d been brought in towards the end of deliberations to replace Juror No. 8, who’d had a medical issue. Because the note had never been shared with either the prosecution or the defense, the appellate court ruled that Heaps was denied a fair trial. On February 2, 2026, his conviction was overturned.

“When a note is sent out to the court, it’s considered to be a critical stage,” attorney Jennifer McGrath, who, along with Darren Kavinoky, represented 312 plaintiffs in the case against Heaps, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “The prosecution and the defense are made aware of the note, and there’s a discussion amongst them and the judge. But the judge was offsite that day.”

Kavinoky explains that “the issue was not so much about this juror’s ability to understand English,” but rather “it was the mishandling of the note that created what the appellate court deemed ‘structural error’ and therefore brought [the case] back for a retrial. This had nothing to do with guilt or innocence or the deliberations that followed.”

For those women who’d testified against Heaps, the reversal was a devastating blow. “They had gone before the Grand Jury, indictments and a multi-month trial where they were cross-examined on the most intimate aspects of their lives. It was really traumatic or them,” McGrath says.

Nicole Gumpert, one of the women represented by McGrath and Kavinoky, tells A&E Crime + Investigation that the decision left her in shock. “For the first 48 hours after the decision I was in a state of suspended disbelief,” she says. “It felt like utter madness.”

Gumpert had gone to see Heaps in early 2018, concerned about suspicions of ovarian cancer. She alleges that what he did during their appointment was “so horrible and egregious, I’m not sure there are words that exist to justify such behavior.”

With the doctor facing a possible second trial, Gumpert recalls “being horrified at the notion of having to testify again.” Instead, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Heaps.

“Part of the reason the District Attorney’s office accepted that guilty plea is because many of the victims were treated so badly, they didn’t want to go through another trial,” says Manly, who also represented victims of former Olympics gymnastics coach Larry Nasser. The plea secured a new conviction and restored Heaps’ original 11-year prison sentence.

In court—with Gumpert and several of her co-defendants in attendance—the doctor pled guilty to 13 felonies involving five women and was required to register as a sex offender for life. “When I heard him plead guilty to those charges, I was grateful,” Gumpert says. “It felt like the closure I really needed, because I didn’t get that earlier.”

The Heaps case sparked outrage against UCLA, which had been made aware of complaints against the doctor for years. In 2019, UCLA settled a $73 million lawsuit brought by 100 women who claimed Heaps abused them between 1983 and 2018—the entirely of his 35-year tenure.

And in May 2022, the university paid out almost $700 million to settle lawsuits brought by hundreds more of Heaps’ victims. UCLA did not acknowledge wrongdoing in reaching the 2022 settlement, but the school did agree to update its procedures for preventing, identifying, investigating and dealing with sexual misconduct.

In a press conference following the sentencing, prosecutor Danette Meyers noted that “UCLA knew about this, but did nothing.” The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office did not respond to A&E Crime + Investigation’s request for comment.

Gumpert prefers to identify as a survivor, not a victim, of Heaps' crimes. She says she chose to reveal her name publicly because it gave her a sense of empowerment. “I did not want to be a victim,” she says. “I believe that perpetrators count on shame in the people they target.”

Gumpert advises anyone who’s endured similar situations to understand that it’s not their fault. “They’re not alone—and they have more power than they can possibly conceive,” she says. “If predators knew they were going to be called out and that the people they targeted are not going to be afraid and not going to be bullied, they would think twice.”