Video Shows Physician Assistant Confessing To Racist, Xenophobic, Sexist Texts

A video circulating across social media that is date-stamped May 7, 2019, is said to portray Houston Physician Assistant Simon, confessing to "Deposition Simon." In the deposition, Simon admits to sending racist, xenophobic and sexist text messages to coworkers. His employer has also issued a statement.

The text messages were reportedly shared by an anonymous individual. 

An attorney is heard throughout the video reading the texts back to Simon. The content includes derogatory statements about Simon’s patients including:

• People of other cultures - African Americans, Mexicans, and Hispanics
• Religion - specifically those of the Jewish faith
• The disabled - specifically those who are overweight and children with mental health disabilities
• Women - specifically overweight 

In the video, Simon is heard admitting to sending the text messages and refers to the statements as “locker room talk” and further states that "I am not proud of some of the things I've said before." 

He is asked to read the following text out-loud,

"Whitey, the advantages of being a white man can never be matched all hail whitey."

The attorney askes, "despite all of these comments in these documents, you are maintaining that you are not racist?" To which Simon responds, "correct."

The attorney goes on to read several text messages directly from the document titled, "Simon Deposition" including, 

• "Fat Jewish Women with Cancer are my Memorial City Specialty...fat black girls are, too"

When asked if any of the statements are inaccurate, Simon shakes his head and says, "a lot of it is locker room talk that I'm not proud of." 

He also admits to using code language in which he uses the term "Canadians" when referring to African Americans. Simon admits that several of the text messages were sent to employees of Memorial Hermann Hospital. 

Employment

Simon was asked about his employment as a contractor through TeamHealth staffing agency at Memorial Hermann Medical Center. He says in the video, dated May 7, that both Memorial Hermann and Team Health were made aware of the allegations and decided "not to fire me at that time because I was an upstanding employee."

The attorney asked Simon if they issued any new restrictions on his employment. To which Simon responded, "not that I'm aware of." He asked if they reduced his compensation and Simon responds, "not that I'm aware of." Lastly, he asked if they placed him on any kind of suspension, Simon answered, "not that I'm aware of."

While it has been reported that Karl Simon was employed as a Physician Assistant in Memorial Hermann’s Emergency Department. According to an official statement shared on Memorial Hermann’s official Facebook Page by CEO, Charles Stokes, Simon was never an employee of Memorial Hermann. He did, however, provide care as a contractor at the facility through TeamHealth staffing agency. 

A post shared by the facility on August 9, 2019 also included the following statement, 

"This individual is a former employee of a vendor with whom we contract to provide services at some of our facilities. We can confirm that the individual in question is no longer treating patients in any of our hospitals."

TeamHealth is a staffing agency that provides temporary healthcare clinicians to emergency departments, outpatient centers and ambulatory centers nationwide.

TeamHealth CEO, Leif Murphy, released a statement on their official Facebook page in which they state that Karl Simon has been terminated.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.