Santa Rosa chiropractor gets 10 years in prison in sexual abuse case

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - A chiropractor from Santa Rosa was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after being convicted of sexually abusing eight women and underage girls, authorities said Wednesday.

Darius Bunyad, 41, owned a sports medicine practice where he abused the women and girls between 2012 and 2015, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

"Bunyad improperly touched his victims’ breasts and other parts of their bodies, all while under the guise that it was for the purposes of legitimate chiropractic treatment," it said.

A jury in 2017 found Bunyad guilty of committing six counts of felony sexual battery by fraud, and multiple additional misdemeanor offenses against the victims, including some who worked at his practice, prosecutors said.

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Bunyad was convicted in absentia after he failed to return to court. He was arrested in Mexico in 2019 and extradited to Sonoma County.

During his sentencing, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Dana Simonds said during his sentencing Monday that probation was not appropriate for Bunyad, who had not shown true remorse.

"The behavior that you engaged in was devastating to the victims," she told him.

Bunyad was also ordered to register as a sex offender.