Couple Admits Paying College Boys to Have Sex

EUGENE, Ore. — A doctor and his wife pleaded guilty to prostitution and were fined $2,500 each for paying college students to have sex with the woman.

Under terms of an agreement between the prosecution and the defense, neither Rodney Thorp Wood nor Nancy Steffen Wood will serve time in prison, perform community service or be placed on probation.

The couple sat together Monday holding hands and exchanging smiles as they waited in court. When Lane County Circuit Judge Mattison asked if they had anything to say, both said, “No, your honor.”

The Woods, saying they were conducting research into the “sexual potential of the mature female,” paid male students at the University of Oregon $10 for each orgasm they or the 44-year-old woman experienced. Police said Wood, 60, recorded the encounters and took photographs.

The Southampton, N.Y., couple were cited by police Sept. 16 at a Eugene hotel.

Police said they had evidence that the couple intended to carry on their “research” at other West Coast campuses.

Wood was suspended as director of anesthesiology at Southampton Hospital on Long Island, N.Y., after the incident became public.

Defense attorney Richard Urrutia said that the Woods never received money in the encounters and that paying a token fee to scientific research subjects is customary.

Urrutia declined to discuss the origin of the research project and said he did not know why the Woods traveled across the country to conduct it.