"I'm in shock, I really am," Dr. Jacobson said after the verdict was announced. "I spent my life trying to help women have children. If I felt I was a criminal or broke the law, I would never have done it."

Defense lawyers tried to portray Dr. Jacobson, whose office is in nearby Vienna, as a physician so concerned with his patients that he went to extraordinary lengths to help them.

His lawyer, James B. Tate, said, "If Cecil made any mistakes, it was in losing his objectivity and trying so hard to get patients pregnant."

Mr. Tate said an appeal was likely, but no final decision had been made. Glare of Public Scrutiny

The case thrust the private issue of childbearing into the glare of media and public scrutiny for many couples already emotionally devastated by infertility. And it drew attention to the fact that there are few laws governing a doctor's role in the rapidly changing field of fertility medicine.

Last November, Dr. Jacobson was indicted by a Federal grand jury for mail and wire fraud, travel fraud and perjury after seven couples who went to him for fertility treatments in the 1970's and 80's learned that DNA tests indicate he is the biological father of their children.

The DNA tests were accepted as evidence in the trial, though defense lawyers questioned the accuracy of the results. Dr. Jacobson has admitted fathering only one child. Prosecutors said 17 children were tested and findings indicated that 15 were fathered by Dr. Jacobson. The charged that the doctor might have fathered dozens more children whose parents did not come forward for testing. Basis of the Charges

Prosecutors wanted to try Dr. Jacobson on charges that he lied to patients by telling them he used sperm from anonymous donors and instead inseminated them with his own sperm.

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They also wanted to prosecute him for allegedly injecting women who were desperate to have children with large doses of hormones, and then telling them they were pregnant when they were not.

However morally questionable those actions are, there are no laws prohibiting a doctor from donating sperm to a patient or impregnating an unwitting woman with his sperm. And there is disagreement in medical circles over what level of hormone treatment is proper for infertile women.

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So, while the case provoked widespread public concern over possible ethical violations of medical standards, family privacy and the delicate issue of human reproduction, prosecutors charged Dr. Jacobson with the more straightforward counts of criminal fraud involving telephones and the United States Postal Service.

Dr. Jacobson was charged with 32 counts of mail fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud for using the telephone to make medical appointments and then mailing bills to patients. Prosecutors say these were patients he deceived.

Dr. Jacobson faced four counts of travel fraud because patients crossed state lines to reach the Virginia clinic he operated from 1976 to 1988. The remaining six counts of perjury were for testimony Dr. Jacobson gave to the Federal Trade Commission in a 1988 civil suit against him for the hormone injection treatments.

At that time, Dr. Jacobson was being investigated by the Virginia Board of Medicine. In 1989 he agreed to a suspension of his medical license until 1994. Some Emotional Testimony

The trial was dominated by emotional testimony of 11 parents who described the shock, dismay and anger of learning that their 15 children were not fathered by anonymous sperm donors, but by Dr. Jacobson.

Federal District Judge James B. Cacheris agreed to extraordinary measures during the trial to mask the identity of witnesses who feared that their children, between the ages of 4 and 14, would see them in news reports.

The judge allowed the parents to use pseudonyms, which were written on cards taped to the witness stand so that lawyers would not forget. Some of the parents wore wigs and makeup when they took the stand. No questions were allowed about the age, sex or general residence of the children.

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One couple testified that Dr. Jacobson promised to use a new technique to inseminate the wife with her husband's sperm. But DNA tests indicated the couple's two children were fathered by Dr. Jacobson. Shocked by Baby Pictures

Another couple said they were shocked by their daughter's first baby pictures.

"We pulled them out of the envelope and we both went, 'Whoa, who does she look like?' " the mother testified. "And we both had the same feeling -- she looked a lot like Dr. Jacobson."

Despite the care taken to insure the parents' anonymity Dr. Jacobson's lawyer, Mr. Tate, repeatedly accused the Government of violating the patients' privacy and threatening their psychological welfare by making the case public.

Dr. Jacobson said he used his own sperm only when anonymous donors failed to show up at his clinic. He said fresh sperm was more effective than frozen sperm, and that he wanted to protect patients from the threat of AIDS.

But three former receptionists and a laboratory technician who worked for Dr. Jacobson testified that there were never any anonymous sperm donors at the clinic.