EXCLUSIVE: High Schools Steering Students To Alleged Porn Producer For ‘Scholarship’

Multiple high schools are encouraging their students to apply for a “scholarship” by sending their name, phone number, and physical and email addresses to a doctor who surrendered his medical license after being repeatedly accused of meeting young aspiring medical professionals online and tricking them into filming porn that he sold or posted to shame them.

In May and June, two university students separately sued Philip T. Sobash, an Arkansas doctor, saying he is “a serial sexual predator who convinces unwitting young women into sending nude images to him and then posts the images with his victims’ names and other personal identifying information onto notorious websites, inciting others to anonymously harass and attack his victims. He sells the images for personal gain. But, more than that, he enjoys harming his victims.”

On August 5, the Arkansas medical board forwarded information about Sobash to the FBI, “encouraged the physician to utilize a chaperone at all times when seeing patients,” and ordered him to come before the board in October, according to medical board meeting minutes. On October 7, the board “unanimously voted to accept the surrender of Dr. Sobash’s Arkansas medical licenses in lieu of continuing with the investigative process,” according to board records.

Lawsuits say Sobash sometimes sent small amounts of money, such as $2,000, to his victims through Venmo around the time they sent photos.

Now, Sobash has set up a scholarship fund that encourages high school and college students to personally contact him in the hopes that they will be the winner of his “scholarship”: a payment of $1,000 awarded to one student.

Numerous high schools and colleges promoted the opportunity. Fort Vancouver High School in Vancouver, Washington, for example, instructed high schoolers “with an interest in becoming a medical doctor” to:

Please email the following information along with your essay (in .doc format) to [email protected]:

Full name

Phone number

Bio

Address

Email Aaddress [sic]

Projected graduation date

School currently attending

Cumulative GPA

A sampling of the many other high schools promoting the scholarship include Pearl River High School in New York, the North Ridgeville City Schools in Ohio, the Prarie du Chien Area School District in Wisconsin,  the Starmont Community School District in Iowa, the Vinton County, Ohio schools, and Alfred Ely Beach High School in Savannah, Georgia.

The scholarship website was registered on July 2, according to domain records. The site says the “deadline to apply for the scholarship is December 16, 2021” and the “Dr. Philip Sobash Scholarship winner will be announced on January 16, 2022.” It says he wants to “give back to the future medical doctors of America.”

The scholarships were posted by high schools after the New York Post wrote about one of the lawsuits against Sobash in May, which meant his background was easily locatable on Google at the time.

Louisiana

On June 30, a graduate student in her early 20s in Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit saying she met Sobash online and he would ask her to send him pictures engaging in specific sexual acts, which she did based on promises they were for his eyes only. She later learned that the pictures were being posted online and that he was engaging in “made-to-order” pornography for paying customers, the lawsuit said.

“Dr. Sobash was receiving requests for particular scenarios from his ‘customers,’ and he would then act as the producer of these pornographic images, made for commercial gain, and then he would distribute them to his customers… Jane Doe was not interested in being a commercial porn actress and was instead pursuing a career in medicine,” it said.

“On information and belief, Dr. Sobash has multiple other victims, some of whom are underage,” it added.

“Defendant has represented himself as an upstanding citizen and had gained Jane Doe’s trust over a period of time,” it said. “Jane Doe confronted Defendant because he was the only person to whom she had sent any of the photographs. Defendant lied and claimed he had been hacked.”

On July 22 the woman asked the court to drop her case “with prejudice,” which often signals that an out-of-court settlement has been reached.

California

On May 28, another woman filed suit in federal court in California, saying that in 2018, when she was a 21-year old university student interested in pursuing a career in nursing, Sobash met her online and convinced her to send him nude photos on the promise he would keep them private.

Sobash “would send her props like sex toys and nursing machines to photograph herself with and then he would direct her. Jane Doe had developed trust with Dr. Sobash and would usually indulge his fetishes,” it said.

“On or about February 2019, Jane Doe received a direct message on Instagram from an unknown person who sent her a link to a Reddit forum where Defendant had published and commercially sold sexually explicit photographs of Jane Doe under the username ‘innocent t–s,’” it continued.

That woman also withdrew her suit with

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