Peabody chiropractor accused of secretly filming clients could lose his license

A chiropractor accused of secretly filming clients with a hidden camera in the bathroom of his office in Peabody, Massachusetts, could lose his license to practice.

Scott Kline went before the Board of Registration of Chiropractors on Wednesday morning for a hearing on the summary suspension of his license, which was issued on July 26. After nearly two hours of arguments from attorneys and testimony from a Peabody police detective, Department of Public Health Administrative Magistrate Nancy Rothstein said she would issue decision by mail within 30 days.

Kline kept silent for the duration of the hearing, except to confirm that he was pleading the Fifth Amendment when his time came to provide testimony. The 44-year-old is also accused of possessing child pornography after allegedly recording a young girl while she was showering inside his Middleton home.

Both Kline and his Salem-based attorney, Paul Moraski, declined to comment after the hearing.

Jenilee Feldman said she went to see Kline twice in 2019 for back pain a couple of months after she had a baby. When some of his comments made her uncomfortable, she said she never went back.

“It's definitely bothersome. I know that I saw him, I know I use his bathroom, I know I changed and I just -- it's just an unsettling feeling,” Feldman told NBC10 Boston. “You're putting your trust in somebody when you go visit someone to take care of you and, knowing the allegations and what's going on, I think it would be really difficult for anyone to trust him and to see him as a provider.”

Peabody police Detective Matthew Whelan, of the criminal investigations division, testified Wednesday that investigators found the camera disguised as a black wall hook while searching the Peabody office, Back on Track, in July. Investigators also found an extensive pornography collection on multiple hard drives, SD cards and several iPhones.

Kline admitted to police that he purchased three cameras, threw two of them away and then stomped on and flushed the third camera down the toilet.

Moraski maintained that Kline did not know how to use the cameras, never used them to record anyone and that it was only used as a hook.

“There will never be any evidence before you that that camera was on, that it was recording,” Moraski said. “As bad as it might look if somebody destroys something or something else, it doesn’t mean that that was what was going on.”

Department of Public Health Prosecutor Candace Hodge urged Rothstein to revoke Kline’s license, calling him an “immediate threat to public safety.”

“Mr. Kline admitted that he put a hidden camera into this bathroom at crotch level in his chiropractic office,” she said. “There’s no other reason that a hidden camera should be placed at crotch level in a chiropractic office, other than some nefarious reason.”