LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The simple pleasure of sifting through photos has taken on new meaning for the Phelps family.
In fact, the word "family" has taken on a new meaning they're still struggling to grasp.
Twin siblings Allison and Kevin began their life as a lie.
"I'm at the anger point right now. I'm just so angry," said their mother, Gayle Phelps Fedele, explaining that when she married Lee Phelps, "I was 31 years old, and my time clock, of course, was ticking. I always wanted to have a child."
To do that, the couple needed artificial insemination with donor sperm.
"We saw Dr. Plautz, and he explained to us that it would come from Rocky Mountain Sperm Bank in Wyoming," Gail said.
Dr. Joseph Plautz, Gail's OBGYN, operated the now-closed Deseret Women's Care, which was located near St. Rose de Lima hospital in Henderson. Gail met Plautz for the procedure at his clinic when she was ovulating.
"I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Father's Day, June 17, 1984," she recalled.
Nine months later, Allison and Kevin were born. They grew up here in Las Vegas, graduating from Green Valley High School in 2003. Kevin went on to UNLV.
After Gail and Lee divorced, she struggled with the secret that he was not the twins' biological father.
"My mom wanted to tell us," said Allison. "She was waiting for the right moment."
Around age 15, Gail felt the twins were old enough to understand, and told them the truth.
"And it was shocking to find out that my dad wasn't really my dad," Allison said.
When both Allison and Kevin developed health problems, Gail sought to learn what she could from Dr. Plautz about her children's medical history.
"And I said, my daughter's getting headaches, and I would really like to know about the donor. And he said that Rocky Mountain Sperm Bank burned down, he's sorry it burned down, all my records were destroyed, and there's no way I could find out anything about the donor."
A couple years after that, Allison says she decided to go and ask him herself "because I was like, there's just no way there's no records of the donor... There's no medical history."
But she says Plautz told her the same story.
"Same exact story. Sperm bank burned down. It's like an identity crisis! You want to know where you came from. Every child has a right to know where they came from. And we wanted answers."
Years later, in the summer of 2023, the answers came.
"We did one of those Ancestry DNA tests," Kevin explained. "And up pops a bunch of half-siblings! And one of the last names was Plautz, and my sister immediately recognized the name."
"And it was shocking!" Allison recalls. "I actually screamed. I dropped to the ground. My kids were like, what? What mom, what?! I was like... He's our father!"
The shock was even starker for Allison because as a teen, she had become one of Plautz's patients.
"The fact that he did a cervical screening on me and a breast examination... I feel completely violated," she said.
"When we both found out with the DNA that her own father examined her, and lied to us, it was just...It consumes us," Gail said.
"When I found out, I was... I was actually vomiting, I was shaking. I'm still... It still affects me. Why would a doctor abuse me like that, violate me?"
Joseph Plautz, who was much older than Gail, died in August 2015, years before Allison and Kevin learned that he — their mother's fertility doctor who delivered them and signed their birth certificate — was their biological father.
"Ironically, he passed away the same year as my father who raised me," Allison said through tears.
"I have these two dads that I can't talk to about this. I can't ask him what he was thinking, having me as his patient, doing this to my mom. It's like medical rape! There was no consent for him to give his sperm to her."
In Plautz's published obituary, he's described as a Navy veteran who served on a hospital's board of directors and was a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From two marriages, he had 13 children, 31 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
"Some of them went to elementary school with us," said Allison. "We lived right by them. We had no opportunity to know them. Everything was a lie."
Kevin lives with the fear that he may have slept with his half-sister in the past growing up in Las Vegas.
"I don't know that I haven't. I have a fear of dating now. I'm unable to date because I was born and raised here and I'm afraid I'm going to go on a date with my half-sister."
Allison moved to Connecticut, where's she's raising her family. Gail lives there, too. Together with Kevin, who still lives in Las Vegas, they're suing Plautz's estate.
"I thought, what a violation!" exclaimed attorney Christian Morris, who explains the ability to sue is relatively new. In the summer of 2023, Nevada became one of only 13 states to pass a fertility fraud law.
"This is dangerous, because this is a process that should have checks and balances," said Morris. "The law being passed last year was the first step."
While working on their case, they've made some key discoveries, including debunking Plautz's story about donor records being destroyed in a fire. An email from the Wyoming State Archive says, while the Rocky Mountain Sperm Bank "closed in 2009, we didn't find anything showing a fire."
"It just shows the ultimate power that he had to take someone's body, use it as he saw fit, when they come in with questions, lie to them about what happened, and continue to practice as a trusted physician," said Morris. "Shows you the kind of God complex that needs to be looked out for."
The medical history on Plautz's side of the family is another concern.
"There's Alzheimer's, there are cancers, there are kidney problems," said Kevin. "I have a kidney problem. There's liver disease."
According to the lawsuit, sperm donors are required to undergo screening to detect and prevent health issues that might affect any children resulting from artificial insemination. The lawsuit says Dr. Plautz, "Did not undergo any such screening and his DNA is problematic because it contains hereditary and genetic conditions which give rise to serious health risks for Ms. Vece and Mr. Phelps and their children."
"I get a lot of people have medical stuff, but he knew!" Kevin exclaimed. "He knew his medical history and he knowingly gave us his sperm, which is a betrayal. It's unethical."
The Plautz family did not respond to our requests for comment on the lawsuit and, so far, the estate has not filed a response to the lawsuit in court.
Allison says the half-siblings she's reached out to have had mixed reactions.
"We've been told that we're liars, even though we have DNA proof to match with them. They don't want to believe that their father is capable of this."
She, Kevin and their mother hope the lawsuit brings some measure of accountability, but also serves as an alarm bell to other patients of Dr. Plautz during his decades of practicing in Southern Nevada.
"People out here in Vegas who went to his fertility clinic to have a baby need to go get DNA tested," said Kevin. "They need to find out if they were deceived, like my mother."
"This is not a man who ran a fertility clinic and decided one day, this was the one lady that he was going to use his own semen with," Morris added. "There is no way on God's green earth this is just a one-off."
With the passage of the state law in 2023, Nevada lawmakers made fertility fraud a felony crime, also allowing civil actions within three years after a victim discovers the fraud. In seeking the law, Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro equated fertility fraud to sexual assault.
The legislation was based in part on the case of Dr. Quincy Fortier, who was the 1991 Nevada Physician of the Year. He served as a commander of the medical reserve unit at Nellis Air Force Base and was instrumental in the growth of Faith Lutheran Academy. He also inseminated dozens of patients with his own sperm without their knowledge or consent.
"They think they're a god or something," said Gail. "I don't know how they get it in their minds that they would do this."
In March, with her mother by her side, Allison testified in a state legislative hearing in Connecticut, hoping to get a law like Nevada's passed there.
She told lawmakers:
"What this doctor did to us was completely incomprehensible and unethical. He made a medical oath to protect his patients but instead lied and used his power of authority to do what he wanted. He ruined our faith in the medical system. We have since found out we have 13 half-siblings and 40-plus nieces and nephews."
Multiple other women told Connecticut lawmakers they, too, were the products of fraud.
"My mother's fertility doctor is my biological father, and I have many, many siblings," said Connecticut resident Victoria Hill. She's one of at least 22 siblings fathered by Dr. Burton Caldwell, who was the subject of a recent CNN report.
"In May 2023, after a high school reunion," Hill testified, "I was talking with friends and learned that my high school boyfriend is actually my half-brother. I was intimate with this person and very much could've seen myself marrying this man and having children had we not gone to different colleges."
Hill told lawmakers there are more than 80 known doctors around the country who've been caught or accused of covertly using their own sperm to impregnate their patients.
CNN reports that so far, no doctors have been criminally charged due to the relatively new passage of fertility fraud laws. Civil cases often come with non-disclosure agreements, and some doctors who have been found out were allowed to keep their medical licenses.
"We need to hold these men accountable," said Allison. "Just because you have the letters 'MD' after your name does not give you the right to do what you want to do."
"It's immoral! It's medical rape! It should be illegal everywhere!" added Kevin.
A federal bill is now pending that would outlaw fertility fraud on a national level by establishing a new federal sexual assault crime for "knowingly misrepresenting the nature or source of DNA" used in assisted reproduction and fertility treatments. The bill was sparked by a 2022 Netflix documentary about Dr. Donald Cline, who fathered at least 90 children in Indiana.
"Before Dr. Plautz moved to Henderson, Nevada, he lived in Indiana, specifically in that same town as Dr. Cline," said Allison. "He worked at the same hospital as Dr. Cline for 10 years."
Plautz's obituary shows he worked at Methodist Hospital in Indiana from 1972 to 1981, then moved to Henderson to open his Deseret Women's Care clinic.
"He broke his oath," said Kevin. "He betrayed not only me and my sister, my mom, but who knows how many other people?"
"He took it to the grave with him," said Allison. "And now we're all left picking up the pieces."
It's a puzzle they hope their lawsuit will piece together.
"This isn't about financial gain," said Kevin. "This is about finding out how many of us are out there."