The University of Utah is now conducting an investigation to determine whether the late Tom Lippert, a former employee and convicted felon, switched clients' sperm donations for his own at the former Reproductive Medical Technologies clinic.

According to Pam Branum, a paternity test revealed Lippert was the biological father of her daughter, Annie. Pam told KDVR that she remembered Lippert, who was also a professor at the university, because of the baby pictures he kept at his desk.

"I commented on the dozens of baby pictures up there," Pam said. "He smiled and looked at those and said, 'Those are all the babies that I've helped couples have.'"

Although the clinic has been closed since 1992 and Lippert died in 1999, the University of Utah set up a hotline for parents who were concerned that Lippert could be part of their family. According to Associated Press, 17 calls have come in asking, like Annie, "Who am I?"

"Unfortunately, the reality of this very disturbing situation is that there is very little information with which to make any definitive conclusions," Kathy Wilets, a spokeswoman for the University of Utah's health sciences division, told AP in a statement.

In 1975, Lippert served two years in prison because he put a female college student in "a black box for three weeks, and used electroshock therapy on her," according to KDVR.

"I'm kind of glad he's dead," Pam said. "It kind of puts that part of it to rest."

According to Wilets, University of Utah is sharing all of the information they have in order to help concerned families, but the situation is a tough one.

"We believe it is impossible to determine exactly what happened," she said. "The university is sympathetic to the distress this situation has caused the Branum family."

Lippert worked at the clinic from 1988 until the mid- to late-1990s. The college is offering free paternity tests to families who used the clinic's services during that time.

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