By Milton G. Allimadi
Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire, the veteran University of Michigan Health-Sparrow anesthesiologist whose wife accused him of illegally drugging her for years with antipsychotic medicines and falsely hospitalizing her in a mental ward, was finally fired by the $7.8 billion hospital system on Feb. 28, 2024 following a series of articles in Black Star News.
The alleged illegal drugging occurred from 2014 to 2021.
Separately, he was also accused of sexual harassment by co-workers and patients over a period covering several years. Hospital administrators repeatedly let him off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist, Black Star News previously reported.
Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire.
In response to an e-mail message on April 25, 2024 seeking comment from University of Michigan President Dr. Santa Ono on whether the hospital would issue a statement about Dr. St. Claire’s dismissal in order to allow other possible victims of sexual harassment or illegal drugging to come forward, Sparrow spokesperson John Foren in an e-mail message said, “Following our standard policy, we cannot comment on pending legal and personnel matters.”
Foren also declined to respond when asked about the case of a nurse who reportedly was fired by Sparrow Hospital after she complained of sexual harassment by Dr. St. Claire.
Court documents in his ongoing divorce case in the Ingham County 30th Judicial Circuit Court, Lansing, M.I., confirm Dr. St. Claire’s termination by Sparrow Hospital.
Dr. St. Claire is also being investigated by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Authority (LARA) and Ms. Fameux has already been interviewed, according to people familiar with the matter. Abby Rubley, director of communications at LARA, responding to inquiries, in an e-mail message to Black Star News on May 1, 2024 said: “LARA does not comment on open investigations.”
Dr. St. Claire, 71, who’d been employed by Lansing, M.I.-based Sparrow Hospital—it was acquired by the University of Michigan Health last year—for several decades, was accused by his Haitian-immigrant wife Cassandra Fameux, 44, of illegally drugging her with antipsychotic drugs beginning in 2014.
She alleged, and records obtained by Black Star News show, that she was injected with the antipsychotic drug Invega Sustenna from July 2017 to February 2021, by Dr. St. Claire and his Sparrow Hospital colleague Dr. Dominic Barberio, a psychiatrist. The drug is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Ms. Fameux didn’t suffer from these ailments and Dr. Barberio falsely diagnosed her with the disease in 2017 to pave the way for the injections, Ms. Fameux alleged. Between 2014 and 2017 Dr. St. Claire drugged her orally, Ms. Fameux alleged.
Dr. St. Claire’s alleged motive for the illegal drugging was to impair his wife’s mental capabilities and coerce her into signing what amounted to post-nuptial agreements, transferring about 90% of the couple’s marital assets—including millions of dollars in cash and their two homes—to his control, Ms. Fameux alleged. The agreements, drafted by Dr. St. Claire’s current divorce lawyer Jessica Larson of Lansing, M.I.-based Mallory Lapka Scott & Selin, PLLC, also gave him advantage in custody of their three children—who were all minors at the time—by naming Dr. Barberio, the alleged co-conspirator in Ms. Fameux’s drugging, as the psychiatrist who would determine her mental fitness for co-parenting. They were signed in 2018.
Additional details of the alleged drugging and other abuses, including rape, are contained in an Oct. 30, 2023 affidavit of criminal complaint against Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio submitted to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, Mark Totten, by Ms. Fameux last year.
Ms. Fameux was injected at least once a month at Sparrow Hospital with Invega Sustenna with dosages going as high as 234 mg, documents obtained by Black Star News show. These medical records of the alleged illegal injections, kept in secret by Dr. Barberio on his computer, were obtained by Black Star News through unconventional means. Even though these documents state that the injections were administered by Dr. Barberio, it was actually Dr. St. Claire himself who gave her the shots in the psychiatrist’s office, Ms. Fameux alleged. Occasionally, Dr. Barberio’s medical assistant administered the injections, she said. Other times, instead of the name of a person who’d administered the shots, the entry stated, “Historical Provider, MD.”
The same records maintained by Dr. Barberio lists at least four other Sparrow Hospital doctors as having medicated Ms. Fameux between 2017 and 2021 with various drugs—in addition to the Invega Sustenna by Dr. St. Claire— such as Lorazepam, a sedative. A website for the drug states that it may “increase the risk of serious life-threatening breathing problems, sedation, or coma if used along with certain medications.” Ms. Fameux claims at one point she’d black out frequently and fall on the floor while grocery shopping. She became so alarmed that she’d ask a housekeeper to accompany her sometimes in case she lost consciousness.
It’s unclear if these doctors were also involved in medicating Ms. Fameux or if their names were added on the documents without their knowledge by Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio. Sparrow spokesperson Foren declined to respond when asked about this matter which will be further explored in a subsequent article.
Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio never wrote prescriptions for the Invega Sustenna in order to conceal their tracks, Ms. Fameux alleged. According to an Oct. 9, 2023 e-mail message from attorney Janet L. Hamilton to Ms. Fameux—whom she represented briefly during her divorce proceeding—Dr. Barberio told her he was “unsure” of Ms. Fameux’s “diagnosis” even though he’d diagnosed her as schizophrenic with bipolar disorder. Hamilton, referring to Dr. Barberio also wrote, “He admits he gave you samples, and says that’s normal.”
In the e-mail message conveying her conversation with Dr. Barberio, Hamilton added, “He is going to say you were never a danger to your children. Also, the fact that Greg’s behaviors contributed to your need for hospitalization.”
The Invega Sustenna injections left her weak, disoriented, incoherent, with slurred speech, and walking “like a zombie,” Ms. Fameux said. She was once so incapacitated after an Invega Sustenna injection that Ms. Fameux thought that she’d suffered a stroke, she said.
Joy-Lee Pasqualoni, spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson, manufacturer of Invega Sustenna, didn’t respond to an e-mail message on March 1, 2024 seeking comment about the alleged illegal injections of Ms. Fameux with the drug samples by Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio. She also didn’t respond to a question about whether Sparrow Hospital had reported the matter to the company.
The only times that Dr. Barberio ever injected her with Invega Sustenna was whenever Dr. St. Claire phoned and asked him to go to the couple’s marital home, Ms. Fameux alleged and documents obtained by Black Star News show. This means that, when added to the regular shots given to her at Sparrow Hospital, Ms. Fameux was injected more than once a month with Invega Sustenna.
Dr. St. Claire was so cruel that he sometimes summoned Dr. Barberio to inject his wife as “punishment,” Ms. Fameux alleged. On one occasion, after she didn’t cook for Dr. St. Claire’s two adult daughters from his late second wife, Dr. Marcy Street, he was so enraged that he phoned Dr. Barberio who went over to the couple’s home and injected her, Ms. Fameux alleged.
Dr. St. Claire kept hand-written records detailing his and Dr. Barberio’s alleged drugging of Ms. Fameux. He also documented her reactions to the various antipsychotic medications they administered, as if he was conducting experimentation. The hand-writing matches those from Dr. St. Claire’s hand-written notes that are part of the court record in his 2003 divorce case from his late second wife, Dr. Street, that were reviewed by Black Star News.
One page of the hand-written notes reviewed by Black Star News documents a home-visit on May 27, 2020 by Dr. Barberio to inject Ms. Fameux.
“Wed May 27th 2020 — Barberio comes to house for shot 1/2 of 334 = 117 mg,” Dr. St. Claire wrote. On that same day, Dr. St. Claire also gave Ms. Fameux “Vraylar 1.5 mg capsule at 1:00 pm & it seemed to work well,” he wrote.
Dr. St. Claire’s hand-written notes documenting Dr. Barberio’s home visits to inject his wife and his own medication of Ms. Fameux.
Dr. St. Claire medicated Ms. Fameux with 1.5 mg of Vraylar every day, from June 17, 2020 to June 21, 2020, according to his hand-written notes. He also wrote, “June 22nd — no pill, Cassie does not take it,” using the name he called his wife, Cassandra Fameux. It’s unclear whether she’d refused to take the pill on that date or if he’d run out of supplies. Dr. St. Claire recorded his wife’s reaction on the day she wasn’t medicated as, “constant aggressive bothering me about wanting to move away with our children.”
Ms. Fameux has alleged that her husband and Dr. Barberio illegally drugged her to induce her psychosis in order for Dr. St. Claire to exert his dominance in all aspects of their marriage.
“I have been treated very cruelly and inhumanely by both my husband and Dr. Barberio,” Ms. Fameux’s Oct. 30, 2023 affidavit to U.S. Attorney Totten stated. “My basic human rights have been violated. Dr. Barberio and my husband committed malpractice and fraud, they misdiagnosed me and mistreated me. Dr. Barberio and my husband inflicted serious bodily and mental harm on me.”
“Invega Sustenna is referred to as a chemical lobotomy for a good reason,” Ms. Fameux’s affidavit added. “The drug gave me lower IQ, suicidal thoughts, worsened memory, slower thinking, chronical depression, irregular heartbeat, diabetes, weight gain, liver problems due to weight gain, high level of prolactin which contributed to my brain tumor in 2021.” Ms. Fameux now has to return to hospital every six months for an MRI scan of the brain to monitor the tumor, she said. In March, 2023, Ms. Fameux had a loop recorder inserted into her chest to monitor her heart. She attributes her condition to the Invega Sustenna injections.
Tiffany Brown, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney didn’t respond to an e-mail message on April 25, 2024 seeking comment about Dr. St. Claire’s termination and whether some of his victims may never be known since Sparrow Hospital hasn’t issued a statement.
In an earlier comment on Dec. 1, 2023, for a previous article, Brown in an e-mail message said, “As long as the court proceedings and investigation is ongoing, our department policy is not [to] comment.”
Dr. St. Claire has admitted to injecting his wife with Invega Sustenna, according to legal documents and several people familiar with the matter.
Ms. Fameux said she plans to take legal action against Dr. St. Claire, Dr. Barberio, and Sparrow Hospital for the alleged illegal drugging.
The couple’s marriage seemed doomed long before the actual wedding. In 2002, Ms. Fameux was a 22-year-old who’d just volunteered in Sparrow Hospital’s nutrition department when she was seduced by Dr. St. Claire who was then 50, she said. It was only years later that she discovered Dr. St. Claire had a reputation for preying on immigrant women employees in subordinate positions at the hospital.
After Ms. Fameux became pregnant Dr. St. Clair pressured her unsuccessfully to terminate the pregnancy, even offering her $80,000, and then threatening to sue when she refused, Ms. Fameux said. He said he had “a reputation to protect” and that he didn’t want his DNA “spreading around,” she alleged. The couple lived in Okemos, a suburb of Lansing, M.I.
The lawyer who allegedly conveyed the threat of a lawsuit, Robert Baldori of Lansing, M.I.-based Baldori Law, didn’t respond to an earlier e-mail message seeking comment. Dr. St. Claire’s divorce lawyer didn’t respond to a question about this allegation sent by e-mail message on Dec. 1, 2023.
Dr. St. Claire continued to pressure her to end the pregnancy, constantly calling her at work or going to her apartment, Ms. Fameux claimed. She moved back with her parents, seeking protection, and she even obtained a personal protective order (ppo) against Dr. St. Claire, she said. After Ms. Fameux gave birth to a girl in 2004, Dr. St. Claire refused to provide child support, saying he wasn’t sure he was the father, so she relied on social services and support from her church, she said.
After a paternity test confirmed he was the father, Dr. St. Claire moved Ms. Fameux and the child into an apartment and started providing child support, she said. Dr. St. Claire also started professing his love for her and eventually she moved into Dr. St. Claire’s house. It’s the same marital home where they lived together until Jan. 26, 2024 and which Dr. St. Claire transferred to his exclusive ownership through the agreements Ms. Fameux claims she signed while under the influence of her husband’s alleged illegal drugging.
Ms. Fameux gave birth to a second daughter in 2005. The couple finally married on Dec. 17, 2009. In 2010 Ms. Fameux gave birth to their last child, a son.
It wasn’t until five years into the marriage, in early 2014, that Ms. Fameux says she started experiencing serious physical and mental health issues. Ms. Fameux said she used to drink a solution she prepared by dissolving powdered cayenne pepper in water before her regular gym workouts.
“I was consuming a minuscule amount of a powdered pepper supplement to naturally boost my metabolism,” Ms. Fameux’s Oct. 30 affidavit to the U.S. Attorney stated. “However, each time I consumed the powder, I would get violently sick, my heart would palpitate extremely fast. I had feelings of fainting, retching, my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes were [falling] out.”
“I became extremely concerned. I voiced to my husband that I was going to have the powder supplement tested for contamination or toxic substances because it was making me violently ill,” Ms. Fameux’s affidavit added. “A few days later, I looked inside the cupboard where I [had] kept the supplement and to my dismay, the supplement was gone. I looked everywhere in the kitchen and it was nowhere to be found.”
Dr. St. Claire blamed her health woes on insomnia and started medicating her with an unknown pill every night, Ms. Famuex said. Her health rapidly declined thereafter and she started experiencing paranoia, she said.
Her husband started exhibiting strange behavior during this period and she became terrified of him, Ms. Fameux’s affidavit to the U.S. Attorney stated. For instance, he’d drive with her to an empty parking lot at night and just stare at her, even though he knew it frightened her, she said. He’d also ask her how she’d feel if he invited a gunman to their home to “pop” her, she claimed.
One night, she became so terrified of her husband that she ran across the street into a neighbor’s home. She refused to leave after her husband followed her. It was only after Dr. St. Claire summoned Ms. Fameux’s younger sister, Jenny Smith, that she agreed to accompany them to Sparrow Hospital, Ms. Fameux said. This was the first time she was hospitalized in Sparrow’s mental health department, which she claims was what Dr. St. Claire had planned all along when he started spiking her drink in 2014. Ms. Fameux said she was so medicated while at Sparrow that when she was released in early 2015 she had to re-learn how to use a fork and knife. It was also during this period, when she was mentally and physically depleted, that Dr. St. Claire raped her, Ms. Fameux’s Oct. 30, 2023 affidavit to the U.S. Attorney stated.
Dr. St. Claire also knew how to manipulate her sister, Ms. Fameux said. Later that year, during this period when Ms. Fameux claimed she’d been incapacitated by Dr. St. Claire’s and Dr. Barberio’s drugging, her sister Jenny Smith was appointed her guardian. Court documents reviewed by Black Star News show that the lawyer who signed the guardianship application approved on Dec. 10, 2015 was none other than Dr. St. Claire’s own lawyer, Jessica Larson.
On another occasion, after the couple had an argument, Ms. Fameux sliced into a family sofa with a razor and Dr. St. Claire punched the back of her head and pinned her to the floor, she said. He instructed one of their daughters to call police and Ms. Fameux was arrested.
After she’d spent a few days behind bars, Dr. St. Claire said he wouldn’t press charges if his wife agreed to be hospitalized in Sparrow’s mental health department again and, not wanting to remain in jail, Ms. Fameux agreed, she said.
Dr. St. Claire had now established total dominance over Ms. Fameux and created the narrative of a mentally unstable woman which then became her reputation in the Okemos community, she said.
During her second hospitalization Dr. St. Claire sent some documents for her to sign but a nurse — and even Dr. Barberio, the alleged co-conspirator — advised her not to sign the papers, Ms. Fameux said.
It’s unclear if these were the same papers drawn up by Dr. St. Claire’s lawyer, Larson, that Ms. Fameux eventually signed on Feb. 20, 2018 during a period when she was still being injected with Invega Sustenna by Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio.
In reviewing court documents, this reporter discovered that Melissa G. Leckie, the guardian ad litem appointed by the court to represent Ms. Fameux, never signed the agreements — raising questions about their validity.
The agreements appeared rigged in Dr. St. Claire’s favor. For instance, Robin Omer, the lawyer who represented Ms. Fameux and whose fees were paid for by her husband had been the law partner of Jane Radner, the lawyer who represented Dr. St. Claire during his 2003 divorce from Dr. Street. Ms. Fameux had no idea of this apparent conflict of interest until she was informed by this reporter.
Finally, the agreement designated Dr. Barberio — the same one accused by Ms. Fameux of being Dr. St. Claire’s co-conspirator in her illegal drugging — as the psychiatrist who’d determine whether Ms. Fameux was mentally fit for co-parenting.
Ms. Leckie, Mr. Omer, and Dr. Barberio didn’t return e-mail messages seeking comment.
Dr. Dominic Barberio. Photo: Sparrow website.
Even though Ms. Fameux was to receive payments amounting to over $600,000, or about 10% of the marital assets based on the 2018 agreements, Dr. St. Claire kept the funds in accounts that also bore his name and reportedly withdrew money from them. Dr. St. Claire was also to make monthly spousal support payments of $3,814 per month, beginning on Aug. 15, 2018 and every first day of the month thereafter, for five years. Yet it wasn’t until Aug. 22, 2023, five years later, that he wrote the first check for spousal support; the check’s memo states, “Payment # 1. For Sept 2023.”
Ms. Fameux signed the agreements that gave Dr. St. Claire control of the couple’s marital wealth in 2018, but he didn’t file for divorce until August 28, 2023, after she confronted him with a video of him having intimate relations in the back seat of a car in a parking lot in broad daylight with his mistress who is a married nurse at Sparrow Hospital. Dr. St. Claire would allegedly leave his 14-year-old son alone in the gym for his trysts with the nurse. The video was reviewed by Black Star News.
When asked in an e-mail message from Black Star News whether she’d known that her client Dr. St. Claire had allegedly been drugging Ms. Famuex, Ms. Larson sent a sharply-worded e-mail message on Jan. 12, 2024 in response: “We appreciate your journalistic vigor. But your queries, especially with the negative tone and unsupported, accusatory, and libelous/slanderous innuendo, are not welcome. The contact is now harassment. Additional contact with me, my client, or the firm I work with will be considered harassment. Please do not reply to this email and do not send any additional correspondence at all to me, my client or my firm.”
Jessica Larson, Dr. St. Claire’s lawyer at Mallory Lapka Scott & Selin. Photo: Firm’s website.
Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio stopped injecting Ms. Fameux with Invega Sustenna in February 2021 after her doctor discovered she’d developed the brain tumor and they panicked, she said. She blames her diabetes, in addition to her heart condition, to the Invega Sustenna injections. She gained more than 200 pounds as a result of the illegal drugging, she said. A photograph of Ms. Fameux, taken in 2014, shows a slender attractive woman of slightly over 100 pounds before the injections started.
When the Invega Sustenna injections stopped, Ms. Fameux started to slowly regain her mental faculties. She was able to piece together what Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio had done to her and began to compile the evidence.
Dr. St. Claire was suspended soon after New York City-based Black Star News’ first article on Nov. 23, 2023, focusing on how Sparrow Hospital administrators treated sexual harassment allegations against him by patients and co-workers over a period of several years, with kid gloves.
The subsequent three articles focused on Ms. Fameux’s allegations of illegal drugging by Dr. St. Claire and Dr. Barberio.
Dr. St. Claire was ultimately fired in February 2024.
Foren, the Sparrow spokesperson, wouldn’t comment when asked if Dr. Barberio’s employment was also terminated.
Ms. Fameux fears Dr. St. Claire may try to kill her before their divorce is finalized, she said. Last year, he asked her to change her will and make him the beneficiary of her estate. A lawyer who previously worked with the couple advised her against doing so. The lawyer declined to comment when contacted by Black Star News. Earlier, Dr. St. Claire had talked Ms. Fameux into making one of his adult daughters from his marriage to the late Dr. Street the executor who would be in charge of her funeral arrangements, even though the daughter detests her, she said. Ms. Fameux said she is in the process of changing the executor.
Ms. Fameux’s allegation that Dr. St. Claire has abused his cozy relationship with officers in the Meridian Township Police Department to victimize her and get her arrested may have been vindicated on January 26, 2024.
On Dec. 12, 2023, Ms. Fameux called this reporter around 7:30 pm to express fear that Dr. St. Claire was about to set her up again by making false allegations to police to get her institutionalized in a hospital. A woman officer from the Meridian Township police had arrived at their home, she said. Ms. Fameux asked this reporter to remain on the phone.
After interacting with Dr. St. Claire the officer handed Ms. Fameux a traffic violation ticket and left. “Who delivers a traffic ticket at night when it could be mailed?” Ms. Fameux, who didn’t believe that was the true motive behind the visit, said. The officer who signed the ticket was Isabella Acker.
The traffic violation ticket delivered at night by Officer Acker.
On Jan. 26, 2024, one day after Black Star News published the fourth article in the series, Dr. St. Claire called 911 to report that Ms. Fameux was having a mental episode. One of the two women officers who responded from the Meridian Township police was officer Acker. Ms. Fameux doesn’t believe this was coincidence.
Dr. St. Claire made a false statement to police, officer Acker’s report, a copy of which was obtained by Black Star News, shows. According to Acker’s report, Dr. St. Claire said Ms. Fameux “suffers from many mental health issues but is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia,” which of course was reference to the false 2017 diagnosis by his alleged co-conspirator Dr. Barberio. Acker’s report, referring to Dr. St. Claire added, “He stated that she has suicidal ideations but none mentioned today.”
As a result of Dr. St. Claire’s false statement, officer Acker took Ms. Fameux to Sparrow Hospital where she was hospitalized in the mental health department.
This was the same hospital where she claims she’d been abused with the illegal Invega Sustenna injections by Dr. St. Claire between 2017 and 2021; it was also the same hospital that had suspended Dr. St. Claire following the Black Star News articles detailing the sexual harassment allegations against him and the alleged illegal drugging.
At Sparrow Hospital, Ms. Fameux claimed she was strapped to a hospital bed and injected numerous times on her legs with medications that were never identified to her. She claimed when she was completely naked, changing clothes, a woman security officer photographed her in the presence of a male officer. Later, some nurses mocked and laughed at her, she said. “One of them said one of my boobs was drooping,” Ms. Fameux said. Presumably they’d been shown her nude photo.
Spokespersons for University of Michigan President Dr. Ono and for the University of Michigan Medical Health-Sparrow declined to comment when asked about Ms. Fameux’s allegations of abuse after she was taken to Sparrow on Jan. 26, 2024 by officer Acker. They were also asked whether security cameras may have captured the alleged incident.
This reporter became concerned that Dr. St. Claire could have some of his colleagues at Sparrow Hospital over-medicate Ms. Fameux and render her vegetative like the Jack Nicholson character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and she’d never get to fully expose her ordeal.
Black Star News mounted a social media campaign to publicize Ms. Fameux’s claim that she was being held at Sparrow against her will.
Ms. Fameux was released from Sparrow and transferred to Battle Creek, M.I.-based Bronson Behavioral Health Hospital, again on the basis of Dr. St. Claire’s false statement to officer Acker.
During this period it was unclear if Dr. St. Claire, who is still legally married to Ms. Fameux, was playing a role in how Bronson Hospital was medicating her. Ms. Fameux said she was also being denied communication with the couple’s youngest child, the 14-year-old son.
Ms. Fameux was in communication with this reporter — until the hospital stopped relaying messages from Black Star News — and she informed him that she was being medicated orally with Abilify.
Later, Ms. Fameux expressed alarm when doctors at Bronson told her that “a judge” had authorized them to switch from oral medication to injections beginning on Feb. 23, 2024. The impact of an injection with Abilify is very debilitative to the mind and body, Ms. Fameux said.
This reporter wrote to Judge Carol N. Koenig, who is presiding over the divorce case in Ingham County, to verify if indeed the court had authorized the injections.
Black Star News launched another social media campaign urging the public to contact the CEO of Bronson Hospital and ask why Ms. Fameux was being held there against her will based on allegations by the discredited Dr. St. Claire. She was released from Bronson the next day.
However, during the period when Dr. St. Claire had Ms. Fameux confined to Sparrow and then Bronson, he applied for and was granted a personal protective order (ppo) against her. In court papers he claimed she presented a physical threat to him because she’d sprayed soy sauce on the walls of their home and squirted some at him. The ppo prevented Ms. Fameux from returning to the marital home. A guardian ad litem was also appointed for Ms. Fameux, mirroring what happened in 2018 when, she alleges, she was coerced into signing the agreements that favored her husband.
Using a ppo and claiming that his spouse is mentally unstable appears to be Dr. St. Claire’s modus operandi in dealing with his marital woes. During his 2003 divorce from Dr. Street, he also sought a ppo against her. His application was denied, court papers show, because she’d already been granted one against him. In his application dated Dec. 19, 2003, he claimed Dr. Street “is being treated for depression and is taking medications and has a chronic history of medication use for anxiety disorder and mood swings.” He also claimed she “is a pathological liar, has an assaultive nature, has anger problem…”
The late Dr. Marcy Street, Dr. St. Claire’s second wife; in court papers he alleged she was mentally unstable, just as he’s done with Ms. Fameux, his third wife. Photo: X, formerly Twitter.
Dr. St. Claire has similarly portrayed Ms. Fameux as mentally unstable; her affidavit to the U.S. Attorney states that she never had any mental health issue before marrying Dr. St. Claire.
Ironically, last year, a close family relative of Dr. St. Claire’s told Janet Hamilton, the lawyer who briefly represented Ms. Fameux in the divorce case, that it was Dr. St. Claire himself who was actually treated for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with lithium decades ago when he was in medical school. Dr. St. Claire completed his medical degree in 1982 from Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine. The family relative didn’t respond to an e-mail message from Black Star News seeking comment. Dr. St. Claire’s attorney, Larson, also didn’t respond to a question about this matter in an e-mail message sent by Black Star News on Dec. 1, 2023.
What’s more, during his 2003 divorce from Dr. Street, the couple’s housekeeper, Shelley Van Epps, filed a sworn affidavit dated Dec. 4, 2003, stating that she’d be willing to testify about alleged peculiar behavior by Dr. St. Claire. When she was working at the couple’s home on the morning of Nov. 13, 2003, Van Epps’ affidavit stated, “Dr. St. Claire was eating cat food and swigging wine from a gallon jug. This occurred at approximately 11 a.m.’”
House keeper Shelly Van Epps’s affidavit about witnessing Dr. St. Claire eating cat food and washing it down with wine. Ingham County court documents.
Ms. Van Epps’ affidavit also stated, “Dr. St. Claire asked me numerous personal questions, including ‘does your husband rub your clitoris, I mean back?’” The affidavit also stated that, “Dr. St. Claire also told me repeatedly that he was horny and asked me if I was horny.’”
“I was frightened by his behavior which I found bizarre and unexplainable,” the affidavit added.
Decades ago, Dr. St. Claire’s first wife, a European national, reportedly traveled back to her country for a visit and never returned. She did not respond to a message from Black Star News via social media seeking comment.
After her release from Bronson in February, Ms. Fameux spent a few weeks in a hotel room and one night in a rented car before she secured her own apartment.
In the on-going divorce case, one of the major issue’s of contention—in addition to computing the marital assets accumulated since the 2018 agreements that Ms. Fameux alleges were coerced while she was being illegally drugged—is custody of the couple’s 14-year-old son.
“I just hope the court doesn’t give custody of our son to a man who leaves him alone in the gym to have sex with his mistress in a parking lot, who was fired by Sparrow Hospital after allegations of sexual harassment by staffers and patients, and after my allegations of illegal drugging,” Ms. Fameux said.
Ms. Fameux says she hopes to go back to school and to resume the life she aspired to lead before it was derailed by the alleged near-decade of drugging. She’d once dreamed of attending medical school but, she says, Dr. St. Claire once told her, “You’re not smart enough.”
Note: University of Michigan Health-Sparrow hasn’t released a statement on Dr. Paul Gregory St. Claire’s firing. Please reach the author in strict confidence via [email protected] if you have any information related to sexual harassment or illegal drugging at Sparrow Hospital.
