Should “Behavioral Pediatrician” Charlene Sabin be Trusted by the Court?

Editor’s Note: Every now and then we are contacted so many times regarding the wrongdoing of the same individual (usually a prosecutor or a judge), we feel it is our responsibility to uncover the truth behind all of the allegations. Do the accusations have merit, and is there evidence to prove what these people are saying is accurate? We launch an investigation to find out. If the reports are true and verifiable, then it becomes our duty to inform others before they are harmed by that individual.
If you have information on Dr. Sabin, call us at 541-474-7885 or send an email to editor@usobserver.com.

By Ron Lee
Investigative Journalist

Our inboxes have been filling up. One doctor is on a lot of people’s minds, they “are being abused” and they are reaching out to us for help. In fact, ever since we took on our first child custody case, complaints against this doctor have appeared. Now, all these years later, with growing public outcry, multiple cases where the doctor is directly involved in custody disputes we are reporting on, and children’s lives literally at stake, it’s time to turn our attention toward Dr. Charlene Sabin.

Dr. Charlene Sabin

According to Dr. Sabin, she says her “practice is limited to conducting evaluations regarding parenting time and custody matters…” In essence, Dr. Sabin is hired by a party in a custody dispute. She then interviews the parties and writes up her evaluation on who she thinks the court should place the child with, and the court typically follows her recommendation.

The problem, according to many who have gone through her process and reached out to the US~Observer, is that she typically places the child with the paying party – normally a father. This recommendation to the court comes regardless if there has been previous documented instances of abuse or violence in the household at the hands of the parent she favors.

Sabin is a self-described “Behavioral Pediatrician” practicing out of Portland, Oregon. I say ‘self-described’ because Sabin is not listed as a certified Behavioral Pediatrician through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB), at least as of a June 12, 2023 search of their licensees.

In the past, Dr. Sabin testified in an Oregon court that she sees “children with their parents of a variety of ages from toddlerhood on up through college for emotional and mental health issues, and medical issues that require medical attention in that area. I do therapy and I do medication management. I do custody and parenting time evaluations.”

Sabin earned her medical license on July 14, 1978, and it is current. According to the Oregon Medical Board, her “specialty is self-reported” and is listed as pediatrics. The American Board of Pediatrics lists Dr. Sabin as having been certified in 1983 in “General Pediatrics”.

Located on her website, Sabin lists many outstanding things on her “Curriculum Vitae” (CV), including an education background, and a long list of professional organizations that you’d infer she belonged to. But is this just more ‘self-reporting’? Does she have that background? Is she really aligned with these organizations, and what does any of that have to do with her evaluating a custody situation for the court? More importantly, what does that mean for the children, whose lives she impacts when she hands out one of her evaluations?

Nothing can be found that shows Dr. Sabin is educated or licensed to be – or qualified to act as – a “behavioral” pediatrician or analyst, therapist, or mental health expert of any kind, other than what she says on her own website. Her medical license lists her as a general pediatrician, nothing more.

In fact, many of the organizations she represents in her CV don’t acknowledge Dr. Sabin as being licensed or affiliated in any way:

• Charlene Sabin is not listed when doing a member search of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, of which the Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (OCCAP) is a regional offshoot.
• The Oregon Psychological Association doesn’t list her as a member.
• The Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists doesn’t list Sabin as being licensed to provide therapy.
• As mentioned above, Sabin is not listed as a certified Behavioral Pediatrician through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB).

All this matters because Dr. Sabin holds herself up as an expert in behavior. In her evaluations, she interviews individual members of the family, including the children, and many times she offers therapeutic recommendations and psychological conclusions based on practices she is not licensed to perform. Who regulates her, when there is no regulatory board that sits over her? The Oregon Medical Board – the only board she is licensed under – has no jurisdiction, as her practice is clearly outside of the scope of general pediatric medicine.

According to the testimony of Landon Poppleton, PhD, JD, who has refuted Dr. Sabin’s reports on multiple occasions, Dr. Sabin doesn’t use any of the prescribed models to determine a child’s best interest. Instead, she uses her own methodology to come to her conclusions. It’s something Poppleton testified to by saying, “You know what struck me about the report when I looked at this as a summary of recommendations. I can’t tell what model [Dr. Sabin] is using to address child best interest. … there’s several different models that can be used to do this. But you want to have some model, so you can critique the model and it can be replicated in some way. And I can’t tell what model she uses to do this.” He later stated, “It’s not the first time I’ve seen this in her reports. It’s actually almost the same critique I’ve given … I’m looking at this and I’m always looking. Does she change it? Did she change it? So I actually testified in cases, having reviewed the data and said this in court, I wondered if she would change, and she just hasn’t.”

If you read our article “Judge D. Charles Bailey Traffics Abused Child?”, you can see the results of one of Dr. Sabin’s evaluations. Because of that case, one young man is fighting for his life to not be placed back with his father – a man he has reported on multiple occasions as having sexually abused him. Dr. Sabin is currently being sued in federal court for her part in his ongoing struggle.

One Yelp review was particularly on-point and scathing:

DO NOT TRUST HER.
My oldest son, now 19 years old and youngest, now 17 years old, would like you to hear their voices on Dr. Sabin. She not only ignored their pleas to not live with their abusive father, she tried diagnosing me, their mother, while not having the education or license to do so. I won back custody of my children after they both endured many years of psychological, emotional and physical abuse by their father, by the recommendation of Dr. Sabin. I worked in child protective services, juvenile law and now work for the government with a degree in psychology. Their father was arrested twice, had a restraining order filed on him by his second wife and was fired from his job all after the illegal evaluation by Dr. Sabin. She will NOT protect children in custody evaluations … and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off paying her off to give custody to fathers – even when they are abusive. … look at the AFCC list to avoid the huge corruption circle for your children.

Bottom line, Dr. Sabin should not be allowed to continue doing evaluations. Her methods are flawed, and her results are clearly not in the best interest of the children. She is not licensed to provide such a service. And it’s high time the courts are held accountable for allowing Dr. Sabin’s fraudulent “expert” testimony.

Judge Denise Keppinger of Columbia County needs to take notice of the type of evaluations Dr. Sabin produces. It is on good authority that Dr. Sabin is clearly showing bias against the mother in the divorce and custody case Chelsea Jones vs Mitchell Jones. It has been reported that Sabin’s evaluation contains misrepresentations of what was told to Dr. Sabin during the evaluation process, and that she is biased against the mother because of having “anxious attachment” or being overly concerned with the welfare of her children, among other things. Further, it is reported Dr. Sabin has glossed over the fact that DHS has been involved, supporting the allegations of the father being overly angry, with the potential for lethality.

Stay tuned for more on Jones’ case, and for Dr. Sabin’s reckoning, which is clearly at hand.