REGINA - A judge in Saskatchewan has sentenced Dr. John Schneeberger to six years for sexually assaulting two female patients and trying to fool DNA experts by inserting a tube of another man's blood into his arm.

Dr. John Schneeberger was found guilty by a judge in Regina Thursday.

  In one case, Schneeberger drugged a woman before raping her in the examining room of a rural hospital in Kipling, Sask.

Prosecutors said he gave her a powerful anesthestic, Versed, that left her unable to move or cry out for help before attacking her in 1992.

Schneeberger, 38, was also convicted of sexually assaulting a second patient twice -- once in 1994, and again in 1995.

But the judge acquitted him on a charge of using a sedative in those attacks. He was also found not guilty of endangering a life with improper use of drugs.

The doctor almost got away with his crime by slicing open his arm in an act of gruesome skulduggery.

During the trial, Schneeberger admitted placing a plastic tube full of a male patient's blood into his arm to try to trick police investigating the women's allegations against him.

On three occasions -- in 1992, 1993, and 1996 -- a lab technician withdrew blood from his arm for police, but in each case the sample came from the tube instead of his vein.

At first police doubted the women's allegations because the DNA blood samples did not match the rapist's semen.

Detectives eventually charged the doctor after obtaining a sample of his hair, which matched the semen but not the earlier blood.

In addition to sexual assault, Schneeberger was convicted of obstructing justice.

A small crowd jeered him as he was handcuffed and led away from the courthouse Thursday.

"This is a glorious day that I've waited for for seven years," said one of the victims, now 29.

"I hope he rots because that's exactly what he deserves for all the hurt (he) caused," she said.

Written by CBC News Online staff