Longtime Waco doctor ticketed for unwanted contact with patient Longtime Waco doctor ticketed for unwanted contact with patient

A family physician who has practiced in Waco more than 25 years is scheduled to complete a deferred disposition term next month after pleading no contest to a Class C misdemeanor charge involving a patient who said he kissed and touched her without consent during multiple appointments.

Dr. Timothy Dean Martindale pleaded no contest Feb. 9 to a Class C misdemeanor assault charge in connection with a Dec. 22 visit in his office at 7104 New Sanger Ave., according to court officials and an incident report filed by Waco Police.

Martindale, 68, reached a plea agreement with Assistant City Attorney Joshua Stephens requiring him to complete a 90-day deferred disposition and pay a $100 fine, Waco Municipal Judge Bobby Garcia said in an email last month. A plea of no contest is not an admission of guilt.

Deferred disposition allows Martindale to avoid a conviction if he complies with the terms of the agreement during the 90 days. Court records show the charge, a fine-only offense, is tentatively set for dismissal July 29.

Waco-area resident Kacey Scott, 28, said she reported the Dec. 22 incident to police later that day. She provided the Tribune-Herald with a video of the encounter, saying she recorded the appointment because of prior instances of what she viewed as inappropriate contact.

Toward the end of the appointment, the video shows Martindale telling Scott, "Hey, I'm sorry you hurt," followed by, "I know you're hurting, and I care." The video then appears to show Martindale place his left hand on the right side of Scott's face and neck, pull her toward him and lean in to kiss her on the left cheek or neck. The incident report says he also touched both of her thighs.

During an interview last month, Scott described what she viewed as a change in Martindale's tone of voice before he made contact, saying, "He gets really quiet right before he's about to do what he knows he's not supposed to do."

She said Martindale followed a pattern of getting "real soft in his voice" at the end of appointments, including during a visit more than a year ago in which Martindale kissed her on the cheek and touched her legs. She described his demeanor as "nonchalant, casual like it was ... just part of his routine."

Toward the end of another appointment about a year later, Scott said Martindale sat close to her and "kind of rubbed his hand on the back of my calf while he was talking."

According to the incident report, the two previous appointments were last summer and fall.

Scott said she started seeing Martindale about eight years ago after her then-husband, a longtime patient, encouraged her to switch doctors. She said her visits became more frequent after a 2020 boating accident left her with two fractures in her back.

Scott said she never confronted Martindale, whom she saw about every three months, because she was "in shock" and suffered a panic attack after the first incident. She said she "just wanted to get out of the office" after the second and did not want him to know she planned to report him after the recorded encounter. She also said she feared losing access to medical care and medication, noting she lost access to her parents' health insurance once she turned 26 and went about two years without coverage.

"If I caught him off guard and he didn't want to be my doctor anymore, I wouldn't have had a doctor," Scott said, adding, "As bad as it was ... I was scared I was going to lose my doctor who could give me the medication I needed."

Scott said she initially tried to switch to another doctor her family had seen, but he was not accepting new patients. She later added that she "wanted to wait until I had proof" and until she had health insurance before switching to a different doctor. Scott said Martindale helped her afford medications despite her lack of insurance by directing her to GoodRx and providing free samples of one prescription through his office. Under Texas law, doctors may provide patients with free medication samples if they believe doing so will help patients adhere to a prescribed course of treatment.

Scott also said Martindale sometimes asked about the status of her relationship with her ex-husband, whom she divorced about five years ago. She described the questions as "very intimate" and "a bit too personal" and said she did not believe they were medically relevant.

"He would ask me about my divorce and if we were getting back together, if we were seeing other people or sleeping with - it was very intimate details about me and him, and if we were getting back together or working on things or going separate ways," Scott said.

She said the questions were "spread out throughout the visits," occurring about "once a year ... or two times a year," and that "the more we separated, the more he kind of wanted to know about me, what I was doing."

After completing his residency at Waco Family Medicine in 1999, Martindale worked at Ascension Providence before establishing his own practice in 2018. The McLennan County Medical Society honored him with its Gold Headed Cane Award that year, and he served as the society's president in 2008 and 2016. He was also president of the Central Texas chapter of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians from 2006 to 2025.

He said Scott in December came to him after an emergency room visit, "was quite tearful and very upset" and he worked to get her to see a surgeon on a shorter timeline than she had been given at the emergency room.

"When we finished, she was still quite tearful and emotionally upset, so having known her for years and been with her through many things, I reached over and embraced her to tell her I cared, and we were trying to get answers for her," Martindale said.

After learning of Scott's complaint, Martindale said he did not believe it was accurate that "she felt uncomfortable with my touch," but felt "it was simplest to ... take care of it by paying the fine." He said his attorney advised him to plead no contest.

When asked what contact he believed Scott was referring to in the police incident report, Martindale said he did not know and could not recall the encounter "thoroughly."

"I know what my notes say," Martindale said. "Of course, I do remember that she was in a lot of emotional distress. I wanted to give her physical encouragement and consolation that I was aware of what she was going through and cared."

Questioned about the video showing him kissing Scott, Martindale said, "I don't think that's something I normally do," and that he "would almost never do that."

"That's not something I think is appropriate," Martindale said. "So, only thing I can think of why I would have done that would just be because of her intensity of despair. Her emotions were so jangled and severe from both her pain and her fear that I was trying to find any way I could give her reassurance and comfort."

Concerning Scott's accounts of appointments before Dec. 22, Martindale said he did not know what she was referring to and "certainly had no interest in a relationship or any desire to have any kind of affection with her."

After learning of the citation, Martindale said he implemented a policy in which "if someone asks for me to hug them, I would like to have one of my staff there with me." He said his patients seek to hug him "all the time."

When asked if his patients commonly seek to kiss him, Martindale said, "For the most part, no."

"Everybody's different about how they like to express affections, and so certainly there are people that would want to hug, and they may even want to kiss," Martindale said. "I don't initiate that. I don't physically restrain them, necessarily, but I don't encourage that or accept that."

On Scott's allegations that he asked her medically irrelevant questions, Martindale said he did not recall asking about her relationship status and that he "certainly had no alternative motives or interest in her that would make a reason for that."

"I'm known for being a very thorough historian, trying to understand everything that's going on in a person's life so I can help them the best," Martindale said. "So, certainly I do ask a lot of questions about how things are, what their life is like, their job, their home, their situation."

Texas Medical Board spokesperson Spencer Miller-Payne said the board would investigate any complaint alleging a physician assaulted a patient "in the course and scope of the physician/patient relationship."

Spokesperson Taurie Sloan said state law prohibits the board from disclosing information about complaints or investigations, but it could disclose disciplinary action. The board does not list any disciplinary actions against Martindale.

Martindale said he was not required to self-report the no contest plea, citing advice from attorneys, his medical malpractice insurance company and the president of the Texas Medical Association.