Global Courant
A gynecologist convicted of sexual assault charges should face at least 25 years in prison for assaulting a “staggering number of victims” over a quarter-century career as a serial sexual predator disguised as a doctor at prestigious Manhattan hospitals, prosecutors say in court filings .
Their presentation in Manhattan federal court late Tuesday precedes a hearing next week in which Robert Hadden’s victims will be able to make statements to Judge Richard M. Berman before he sentences Hadden next month.
“The defendant repeatedly used his position of power for decades to assault, exploit, deceive and sexually rape patients seeking medical care, many of whom were particularly vulnerable,” the prosecutors wrote. “He committed multiple assaults on patients – while hiding behind his power as a doctor and enjoying professional and financial success.”
NY JUDGE SENDS FORMER OB-GYN ROBERT HADDEN TO PRISON, CONVINCED OF SEXUAL ABUSE OF HUNDREDS OF WOMEN
Hadden, 64, of Englewood, New Jersey, was convicted in January of enticing victims to cross state lines so he could sexually assault them. Nine former patients testified at the trial.
Defense attorneys said in their current statement last week that Hadden should face three years in prison after he had not abused anyone since he stopped practicing medicine a decade ago.
Hadden has lost 35 pounds and received repeated threats of violence at a Brooklyn federal prison, forcing him to stay in his cell except to shower or call relatives, the lawyers said.
Prosecutors allege that Dr. Robert Hadden, formerly of Columbia University, should face at least 25 years in prison for a “staggering” number of sexual assaults he committed as a gynecologist. (AP photo/Yuki Iwamura, file)
At trial, Hadden’s lawyers did not dispute that he had abused patients, but they said he had already been prosecuted for those crimes in state court, where Hadden pleaded guilty in 2016 to charges that he had molested several women. That plea required him to surrender his medical license, but he did not spend time behind bars.
Prosecutors said in their papers that Haddens’ “calculated career as a serial sexual predator” began shortly after he began working at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in 1987, which later became New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Trial evidence showed that Hadden committed 167 to 310 acts of sexual abuse or assault on dozens of patients as he honed his abuse techniques so the assaults would go unnoticed for more than 20 years, prosecutors wrote.
They said he bonded with the victims in a private office decorated with pictures of his children and put them at ease by asking about their personal lives and talking about his family.
FORMER OB-GYN ACCUSED OF HUNDREDS OF RAPE IS ACCORDING TO THREATS, IMPRESSION BY OTHER PRISONERS, ACCORDING TO LAWYERS
Ultimately, he sought sexual gratification when he asked the victims “detailed, inappropriate and medically unnecessary questions and gave unsolicited advice and commentary about their bodies, pubic hair, masturbation, sexual activity, sex toys, pornography and sexual partners,” prosecutors said.
They said he devised ways to get nurses and medical assistants to leave him alone with patients in the exam room, where he pretended to “do a fake second exam, during which time he sexually assaulted patients.”
Prosecutors said they learned that Hadden had “attacked a staggering number of victims … under the guise of medical care”.
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He worked at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital until complaints about his seizures halted his career. The institutions have agreed to pay more than $236 million to settle civil claims from more than 200 former patients.
