It’s the last Yelp review any respectable business would want shared online.
“Filthy disgusting human being...HIV positive and intentionally infect[ing] others. having sex with animals, possession of child porn, meth user…i pray you get yours in prison…”
The amateur critic—going by the name Kat J.—ultimately awarded one star to the office of Dr. John Wolf in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Kat was reacting to the news Friday that the well-known New York dentist had been arrested and charged with exchanging dental work for methamphetamine and possessing hundreds of child-porn videos.
Even more disturbing, the criminal complaint said a drug-dealing informer told federal authorities that Wolf, who is reportedly HIV-positive, claimed to have poked holes in his condoms “in an intentional attempt to spread the H.I.V. to his sexual partners.”
In audio recordings provided to the feds, Wolf allegedly discusses raping animals and, on one occasion, drugging a man with ketamine before sexually assaulting him. In separate recordings made by an undercover FBI agent, Wolf allegedly brags about drugging both “willing and unwilling adults during drug-fueled sex parties” and says it would be “hot” for him and the agent to sexually abuse kids together.
The agent recently rendezvoused with Wolf at his Chelsea office, where the doctor was recorded saying he hosted orgy parties in the office basement, according to the criminal complaint. This was allegedly the same meeting at which Wolf and the federal agent bonded over watching 35 minutes of kiddie porn together, and Wolf described one video he really enjoyed in which an “8-year old ‘retarded’ girl” is raped.
When you get to the end of this long list of absolutely horrifying and appalling accusations, it’s flooring to realize that being “actively involved in underground sex parties at various locations in New York City, including in Brooklyn, where participants would engage in sexual intercourse with animals,” is definitely one of the less shocking, less illegal things the dentist has allegedly been up to.
Friday’s news was probably the last thing any of Wolf’s many patients would have expected to read about him. If the allegations are true, it would be all too easy to label him a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde.
Wolf has been a popular dentist in Manhattan for years, with clients, friends, and acquaintances describing him as a hugely likable, fun person and a “brilliant” and “fabulous” dentist. “He is also a very kind and sensitive man, and is fast becoming a very good friend of mine,” a patient wrote on Yelp. Federal prosecutors even noted in the criminal complaint that Wolf’s life has (to put it modestly) a “bizarre duality” to it.
"If you're asking if there was ever anything to make me think my dentist was a meth-doing psychopath who liked to spread [HIV] around and fuck farm animals, then no, there was never anything like that when I went to get my teeth fixed," one former patient told The Daily Beast.
Wolf also gained popularity for his work as an AIDS activist, which included winning a lawsuit, at the height of the 1980s AIDS panic, against a landlord who tried to bar him from treating patients who were HIV-positive.
“People should not be denied access to care because of their HIV status,” Wolf told Backstage magazine in 2001. “It’s been proven throughout 15 years of the AIDS epidemic that the likelihood of this virus being transmitted between patient and doctor is extremely remote, if it even exists at all—especially when proper barrier techniques are used.”
There is, of course, a bitter irony to reading those words in the wake of the horrific criminal complaint filed last week.
“It's incumbent on health care professionals to become more knowledgeable about HIV transmission, so they can better serve people with the virus—rather than refuse to,” Wolf continued.
In 1988, Wolf appeared on Richard Bey’s talk show to discuss the discrimination his HIV-positive patients faced.
The dentist also starred in an aborted documentary titled Our Time to Sing, which would have detailed the gay and lesbian chorus movements of the mid-’80s. He was a featured singer in New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and was interviewed about coming out to his family, his life, and fighting homophobia.
The charges and accusations now read like social-conservative fan fiction—a well-liked gay activist who leads a double life as a drugged-out, child porn-hoarding sexual predator who attends New York bestiality orgies and tries to weaponize HIV.
“I'm struggling so hard to come to terms with the charges against Dr. Wolf,” a friend, going by “patrick K,” wrote on Yelp on Monday. “I have been his patient for 28 years. He has been the kindest and most compassionate health care provider I’ve ever encountered. All of my closest friends and family have also been his patients for years. I’m not sure what to make of all of this news but it simply does not jibe with the man I’ve known and cared about for decades…I’m very concerned for his welfare. I’ve been crying intermittently for days.”
“I thought we lived in America where you were innocent until proven guilty,” another user, “mike a,” wrote on Saturday. “If Dr. Wolf (who I've known as a patient for years), is guilty of a crime that is for the judicial system to determine…Did Dr. Wolf, who has a sardonic sense of humor, make comments that might be inappropriate but not relevant to any facts?”
The feds, however, are convinced they have an airtight case against the popular dentist. In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza noted the “overwhelming evidence in this case” when she asked the judge to deny Wolf bail. A bail hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
“Drug investigations have taken us down dark roads before, but nothing darker than the office practices of Dr. Wolf,” DEA special agent James Hunt announced Friday. “I commend the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force and the FBI Crimes against Children Unit for the exigent work on this ongoing investigation.” (Reached by The Daily Beast on Monday, DEA spokeswoman Erin Mulvey said the agency had no further comment at this time.)
Wolf’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and calls to Wolf’s office were not answered.