The following narrative discusses the drug facilitated sexual assault and rape completed by Stamatios Dentino MD, current medical director of Huntsman Mental Health Institute, against I THRIVE's creator, Heather Curtis MD, in June 2020
Discussion of these materials may be retraumatizing to survivors of similar violence. Read with caution.
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Background
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Heather Curtis, MD, creator of I THRIVE, first met Stamatios Dentino, MD, in 2013 while she was a medical student on a psychiatry rotation. Their contact was minimal and intermittent over the years once Heather joined the University of Utah Psychiatry Residency Training Program in 2015, with no ongoing personal relationship. In 2020, following professional isolation related to reports made during residency, they briefly reconnected through social media. Given his familiarity with her professional background, Dr. Curtis believed at the time that Stamatios might be a safe person with whom to speak.
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At that time, psychiatry was entering a widely recognized psychedelic renaissance, with growing professional interest in the therapeutic potential of substances such as MDMA and psilocybin. Like many psychiatrists exploring this emerging area, Dr. Curtis experimented with these medicines for personal healing and to better understand their clinical potential. Of note, this narrative references past experimentation with and illicit use of psychedelic medicines. Such use is not recommended and individuals are strongly encouraged to pursue only legal, regulated pathways to ensure safety and professional protection. Following these events, Dr. Curtis fully disclosed her substance use to the Utah Professionals Health Program. She was cleared by the medical board as her past use was determined to be within scope of practice during the psychedelic medicine renaissance. Heather pursued mental heatlh treatment to recover from her abuse. She later pursued formal training in psychedelic-assisted therapy with CIIS CPTR, ketamine assisted therapy with PRATI, and MDMA assisted therapy with MAPS positioning her as a knowledgeable, ethical, and valuable contributor to the field of psychedelic psychiatry particularly in the realms of harm reduction and psychedelic facilitated sexual assault.​
The Assault
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In June 2020, Heather Curtis, MD, creator of I THRIVE, was sexually assaulted (raped) by Stamatios Dentino, MD, her former professor and actively practicing attending psychiatrist at Huntsman Mental Health Institute, while Heather was under the influence of MDMA. Dr. Dentino, who had significant prior experience with psychedelics and personal familiarity with their effects, was sober at the time.
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Earlier that evening, Heather informed Dr. Dentino that she was on MDMA. He immediately called and stated that this would be “the perfect way to have this conversation.” Heather understood this to mean a supportive or therapeutic discussion regarding harm she had experienced during her residency at the University of Utah Psychiatry Residency Training Program and the professional consequences that followed. On that basis, she agreed to see him.
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When Dr. Dentino arrived, Heather was visibly impaired on the empathogen MDMA and emotionally open. Over the course of the evening, Stamatios questioned her extensively about deeply personal and distressing matters, including her residency reports involving an incident of stalking which was mishandled during training, and her subsequent professional isolation. During this conversation, Heather disclosed that she had been under the influence of psychedelic medicine on the night her residency reports were sent to her program. In response, Dr. Dentino stated that his parents had taught him to “deny till you die” indicating she should not tell anyone this. He also disclosed that he had been sexually assaulted by a woman at age 15 and that he had previously been accused of sexual assault in college, which he framed as traumatic for him. These disclosures occurred immediately prior to the assault and seemed to suggest that Stamatios did not have empathy for Heather and rather he sided with his peers. It also suggests that Stamatios targeted Heather, because he knew it would be likely that her peers would continue to deny their involvement in mishandling past reports of stalking in residency and he could therefore get away with harming her with low risk of Heather subsequently being believed.
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In conversations prior to his arrival, Dr. Dentino had explicitly indicated he would not pursue sexual contact with someone under the influence of MDMA. Upon his arrival he was aware that Heather was intoxicated and explicitly asked how much MDMA she had taken, underscoring his awareness of her impaired state. Shortly thereafter, he initiated sexual contact without Heather’s consent and in a state she was unable to consent to. Heather expressed fear, stated clearly that she did not want to proceed, referenced prior sexual trauma, and asked him to stop. Despite these objections, the assault continued.
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After stating that further sexual activity was not necessary, Dr. Dentino repositioned Heather in a manner that resulted in further non-consensual sexual contact and rape. This final act occurred in the same physical position Dr. Dentino had earlier described when recounting his own experience of being assaulted as a teenager. The similarity was profoundly distressing to Heather and she believes Stamatios raped her in this fashion to recreate his past abuse and punish Heather for her past reports of harm during residency training.
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Shocked and disoriented, Heather withdrew physically curling into the fetal position as Stamatios completed his abuse. Dr. Dentino left shortly afterward, repeating back to Heather a sentence she had spoken to him years earlier when she abruptly ended a study session they shared in medical school. This felt significant as if Stamatios had assaulted her in part to also punish her for walking out on him 7 years prior and to confirm to Heather that he knew exactly what he was doing this night, that the rape had been completed in pre-meditated fashion. Following this Heather went to sleep in a state of acute shock and overwhelm.
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The following morning, Dr. Dentino contacted Heather by text and began reframing what had occurred in a clear effort to cover the assault. He asked whether she was “okay,” whether she “regretted it,” and described the event as “special.” Heather did not feel able to report the assault at that time, given her intoxication and her fear that reporting a senior academic physician would further jeopardize her career. When she reminded Dr. Dentino that she had been on MDMA, he responded in a manner that appeared to minimize or deny prior awareness though he had explicitly expressed his awareness of her intoxication the night of the assault.
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In the days and weeks that followed, Heather engaged in behaviors consistent with recognized post-assault trauma responses and attempts to reclaim agency. She sent Dr. Dentino photographs that she also posted publicly on social media to emphasize that he was not special and not in control of her narrative. She sent music intended to irritate or unsettle him as indirect expressions of anger and resistance. She also sent a private video as an act of reclamation—an attempt to take back power, reverse humiliation, and diminish the control he held over her following the assault in a fashion that mirrored the harm she had sustained. She told Stamatios she wanted to do back to him as he had done to her by exposing his behaviors in an act of psychological undoing. These actions were later reframed as infatuation and weaponized against Heather by Stamatios in his efforts to deny his assault and later claim that the encounter had been consensual despite Heather's efforts being a clear expression of her effort at reclaiming her agency post the assault.​
Aftermath, Retaliation, and Institutional Betrayal
In the immediate aftermath of the assault, Stamatios Dentino, MD, initially denied that any assault had occurred and attempted to recruit physician peers to his aid to cover his abuses. Over time, in setting of Heather's knowledge of identifying details regarding Stamatios' body this denial shifted to a claim that the encounter had been consensual. Throughout 2020 and 2021, Heather Curtis, MD disclosed the assault to trusted peers, seeking understanding and accountability while limiting broader disclosure out of fear of professional retaliation.
In January 2021 Heather began a wide-scale effort to expose her abuse in the psychiatric community. She reported her assault to UPHP as well as her past experimentation with psychedelic medicine, later reporting the sex assault (rape) she experienced at the hands of Stamatios Dentino MD to law enforcement in 2022. Because reporting was delayed—largely de to fears that disclosure of past MDMA use would jeopardize her medical licensure in addition to threats she sustained relative to her personal and professional safety during this period—there was limited physical evidence beyond her testimony and her accurate knowledge of personal identifying physical details related to Dr. Dentino. Police documented the report but explained that delayed reporting, power imbalance, and lack of contemporaneous evidence often make prosecution difficult, even when an assault has occurred.
In this regard, I fewer THRIVE encourages all survivors to report sexual assault as soon as they are safely able, as prompt reporting improves the chances of evidence preservation and legal action. Even so, national data consistently show that fewer than 1% of sexual assaults in the United States result in a felony conviction, and only a small percentage ever lead to arrest or prosecution. Delayed reporting is common, especially when survivors fear retaliation, disbelief, or professional harm. Reporting is a personal decision that must be made individually as prosecution is rare and risk of retraumatization is high.
Beginning in 2022, Heather began sharing her experience more broadly, though still cautiously in setting of threats she received to her physical safety if her reports harmed the psychedelic medicine movement. Formal investigations related to the assault and the institutional response unfolded between 2022 and 2025 within various police departments and the Utah Division of Professional Licensing. During this time, representatives of the University of Utah declined to provide statements or testimony, including in response to subpoenas, prolonging the process for greater than 2 years and increasing emotional and financial strain such that Heather closed her investigations to focus on personal wellness in March 2025.
Despite these investigations and in an example of extreme injustice, institutional betrayal, and disregard for patient and student safety, the University promoted Dr. Dentino to Medical Director of Huntsman Mental Health Institute in July 2024. This decision reflected a familiar institutional pattern in which protecting reputation and authority has taken precedence over survivor safety and transparency at University of Utah training sites.
Also in 2024, the University of Utah attempted to characterize Heather’s public reporting of the assault and related institutional conduct on her website as a form of stalking, a clear effort and attempt to silence her. The Salt Lake City Police Department declined to pursue charges at this time, explaining that Heather’s actions—publishing her experience of sex assault and documenting the University's subsequent institutional conduct—were lawful, protected speech and did not meet the legal definition of stalking. Police refused to allow the University of Utah to weaponize criminal law to suppress or reframe allegations of sexual abuse and upheld Heather's first amendment rights to free speech and activism in reporting these abuses.
Rather than retreat, Heather has chosen nonviolent resistance and activism through her advocacy work to expose these harms. Through truth-telling, art, and outreach, she asserted that reporting sexual abuse will not be misattributed to stalking by the perpetrator, that speaking publicly about harm is not harassment, and that survivors have the right to name their experiences without fear. In doing so, she sought not only personal healing, but to help establish a precedent—that ethical, lawful resistance can challenge institutional silence and create space for others to come forward.
Commitment to Harm Reduction and Prevention
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I THRIVE’s mission is grounded in harm reduction, survivor safety, and the prevention of abuse—particularly within emerging fields such as psychedelic-assisted therapy, where power imbalances and altered states can increase risk if ethical safeguards are absent. This narrative is shared with care and intention: to stand in solidarity with other survivors, to translate lived experience into prevention, and to strengthen standards that protect patients, trainees, and communities. By naming what occurred and the institutional dynamics that followed, I THRIVE seeks to reduce future harm, promote ethical practice, and ensure that the risks of psychedelic-assisted sexual abuse are understood and addressed—so that students, patients, and community members connected to the University of Utah and beyond are safer as this field continues to evolve.​​
