REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) -

Dr. William Ayres’ specialty was child psychiatry, which meant it was perfectly routine for him to be alone and behind closed doors with boys.

During a more than 40-year career in which he rose to the top of his profession, he took advantage of that to molest numerous patients, authorities say.

Ayres, 75, is charged with 18 counts of lewd and lascivious behavior involving five boys, ages 9 through 12, under his care. Prosecutors believe there were dozens more victims and plan to bring additional charges. Ayres, who was arrested earlier this month, is free on $750,000 bail.

“His reputation is being destroyed by unsubstantiated leaks and innuendoes,” said his lawyer, Doron Weinberg. “He unequivocally denies that he committed any of the acts of sexual misconduct of which he’s been accused.”

The earliest allegations of wrongdoing against him are from 1969.

If Ayres is guilty, how did he get away with so much for so long?

“It’s the perfect storm,” prosecutor Melissa McKowan said. “He has a stream of potential vulnerable victims coming through his office, all of whom have a built-in reason for not being credible if they come forward. This is a psychiatrist who’s seeing kids with some emotional, behavioral problems.”

Ayres worked at a home for troubled boys in Boston before moving in the 1960s to Northern California, where he began counseling children, mostly adolescents. His patients were a mix of patients from wealthy families who were referred to Ayres by their pediatricians, and juvenile delinquents ordered to undergo therapy by the courts.

The abuse always began the same way, McKowan said, with a “physical.”

Ayres asked the boys to undress, then “examined” their genitals, according to his accusers.

“I felt creepy. I felt like I had allowed it or consented. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone,” said one alleged victim, now a 43-year-old writer in Los Angeles. He sued Ayres and settled for an undisclosed sum in 2005. Authorities were thwarted in an attempt to bring criminal charges in his case, because of a court ruling in an unrelated case that prevented many decades-old cases from being prosecuted.

The man’s mother said her then-12-year-old son told her the doctor had given him a physical, which struck her as odd given Ayres’ specialty.

“I remember thinking, `That’s strange,’” said the woman, a 76-year-old retired mental health professional. “But I didn’t follow up on it.”

Another alleged victim, who was 11 when he first went to see Ayres, told his mother that he was abused, but she didn’t believe him, the mother said.

“You didn’t believe that priests, doctors and teachers would do that,” said the woman, a 77-year-old retired school employee from San Mateo whose son died in a car crash in 1995. “If we had only known and taken action at that time … who knows?”

The first documented complaint against Ayres was filed in 1987. Police decided the claim was unfounded. Another complaint was lodged in 1994, but the alleged victim refused to cooperate.

Meanwhile, Ayres rose to prominence in his field. In the late 1960s, he hosted “Time of Your Life,” a sex education series broadcast locally on public television. The series, aimed at fourth- through sixth-graders, was criticized at the time by some parents, who said it was too explicit and undermined parental authority.

In a 1969 interview with The New York Times, Dr. Ayres defended the program. “For many years, kids have been coming into my office knowing some of `the facts of life,’ but with many facts left out,” he said. “They wind up being bewildered, with a great many concerns and anxieties from their lack of knowledge.”

He was elected president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, serving from 1993 to 1995, and received accolades from county officials for his “tireless effort to improve the lives of children.”

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down California’s practice of allowing victims of sexual abuse to come forward and press charges at any time. Because of that, California established a statute of limitations for long-ago cases. Now, victims must be younger than 29, or the crime must have occurred after 1988.

In 2006, after confiscating Ayres’ records, investigators found a victim who fit within the statute. Nearly 40 alleged victims have since come forward, but most of them claimed they were abused in the and ’70s, and cannot press charges, McKowan said.

Ayres estimated he has seen 2,000 patients in 40 years of practicing in San Mateo County. Prosecutors seized his records on his 800 private patients.

But because of confidentiality rules and other complications, McKowan said authorities may be unable to obtain the records of his court- referred patients.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.