Doctor Is Charged With Sexually Abusing 2 Patients When They Were Minors
A prominent New York urologist sexually abused dozens of patients by telling them the abuse was part of their medical care, according to federal prosecutors.
Federal prosecutors charged a urologist, who worked in two prominent New York hospitals, with sexually abusing'multiple patients'. The assaults began when the patients were minors.
According to the indictment, Darius A. Paduch enticed victims from other states to come to New York so that he could assault them, while attempting to convince them that 'the sexual abuse he committed against them was medically appropriate and necessary'.
Dr. Paduch is a male fertility specialist who was charged on two counts of inducing a minor to engage sexually in an unlawful activity, and inducing a traveler to engage sexually in an unlawful activity. Damian Williams of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan announced the charges and said that the doctor exploited his victims "for his own deviant pleasure."
Dr. Paduch of North Bergen in New Jersey, who appeared in Federal District Court on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to the charges and was detained. He can still request bail, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The indictment and the news release issued by Mr. Williams’s office did not identify the hospitals at which Dr. Paduch was accused of abusing victims. However, they did state that he had worked at two from 2003 until 2019: one hospital from 2003 to 2019, the other from 2018 until this year.
Lawsuits filed by the victims described in the indictment, and by four other patients who accuse Dr. Paduch of abuse, identify one as NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan and the other as Northwell Health on Long Island. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell is a defendant in the suits; Northwell is named in one.
The latest of these suits was filed just last week. In it, the plaintiff, Tucker Coburn, accuses Dr. Paduch of abusing him from June 2016 to January 2019 at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.
According to the lawsuit, in January 2017, a nurse asked Mr. Coburn to speak with a patient who the nurse thought the doctor had abused. According to Mr. Coburn, the request suggested that the nurse thought he was also abused.
In the lawsuit, Mr. Coburn claims that in September 2020 he contacted a hospital to inform them that Dr. Paduch abused him and he also contacted police. Mr. Coburn claims that the hospital did not respond.
A spokesperson for NewYork Presbyterian/Weill Cornell stated on Tuesday that they took the disturbing accusations very seriously and hired an outside law office 'to conduct an extensive investigation into the behaviour' of Dr. Paduch. He refused to comment on these lawsuits.
Barbara Osborn said that Dr. Paduch was no longer employed at Northwell and the hospital took the allegations very seriously.
"We will work with the authorities to conduct their investigations," Ms. Osborn said. She refused to comment on the lawsuit or give a date when he left Northwell.
According to the indictment the abuse was a pattern that lasted between 2015 and at least 2019 after Dr. Paduch switched hospitals and until 2022. The indictment doesn't specify why the patients sought treatment.
Indictment: Alone in an exam room with a patient, he would tell the person to masturbate before him while pornography was playing, and would often insist on touching them, sometimes using some sex toys. Indictment: He would sometimes press himself against the victims and grope them while standing close by. The indictment states that none of this was done for medical reasons.
Indictment: Dr. Paduch made sure that abuse continued by encouraging victims to come back for follow-up visits. According to the indictment Dr. Paduch sent text messages, including to minors, to victims after appointments ended, making inappropriate sexual remarks and jokes.
Mallory Allen is a lawyer representing the six plaintiffs who are suing Dr. Paduch. She said that 14 former patients have also retained her firm to represent them in a lawsuit alleging abuse by him. She called Dr. Paduch a "master manipulator" who groomed people to abuse them and someone who "took advantage of the position of supreme confidence".