Following sexual assault claims and criminal charges against a former OB-GYN in Columbia University’s hospital system, the university is under criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office over its response to the sexual assaults, CBS News reports.  

In September, federal prosecutors charged Robert Hadden, M.D. with “six counts of enticing and inducing women, including one minor, to travel to his offices from other states to engage in illegal sex acts,” according to The New York Times.

After Hadden’s arrest, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confirmed an “intensely active” investigation examining “potential failures by Dr. Hadden’s employer and hospital to disclose additional incidents of abuse to our office and to regulators when required.” The DA’s office first opened a case against Hadden in February, after Evelyn Yang, the wife of former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, came forward claiming Hadden sexually assaulted her while he was Mrs. Yang’s gynecologist.

Federal prosecutors say the former gynecologist sexually assaulted “dozens of female patients, including minors” between 1993 and 2012.

New evidence came to light in February when CNN reported that a patient wrote a letter to Columbia University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1994 detailing an alleged sexual assault by Hadden during the woman’s routine visit. The patient said she received a response from the department head at the time assuring the patient that her complaint was being taken seriously and that she would be contacted after an investigation. The woman said she never heard from anyone at the university.

Columbia University has denied accusations that the school didn’t respond adequately to patient reports of sexual abuse, the first of which was 25 years ago.

Over the years, some of Hadden’s accusers have said that a female chaperone was sometimes in the exam room with Hadden, but the chaperone could not always see what the doctor was doing, or would simply not interfere even when the doctor seemed to perform excessively long breast exams on his patients, according to a report in The Columbia Spectator. In some cases, Hadden allegedly appeared to keep the chaperone from seeing what he was doing or even rescheduled appointments when he knew no chaperone would be in the office.

Most people are surprised that sexual abuse can happen in the presence of chaperones, but not all chaperones are properly trained to pinpoint abusive conduct, especially in such an intimate exam setting, said James DuBois, a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Robert Hadden accusations of sexual abuse may finally land the former gynecologist behind bars.

A July 6 trial date was set last month, and Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman denied Hadden’s request for a public defender, calling the financial records Hadden submitted “woefully inadequate,” the New York Daily News reported.

Hadden had claimed poverty in “handwritten, incomplete, unsigned, unsworn-to,” documents that the judge characterized as “totally inadequate.”

Berman said that in the months following Hadden’s arrest, two separate accountants declined to provide a report on Hadden’s finances for reasons that remain unclear. Hadden’s lawyers promised the judge that a third accountant would provide documents with Hadden’s financial information.

Hadden is free on $1 million bond, despite a prosecutor’s objections that Hadden is a flight risk.

When Were the First Dr. Robert Hadden Accusations?

The New York Police Department received the first complaint against Hadden in June 2012 when a patient reported that Hadden had licked her during an exam. The authorities reportedly took Hadden in for questioning, but he returned to the office and continued to see patients for about six weeks before Columbia finally stopped him from practicing. 

Hadden is now the subject of a class action lawsuit.

What Criminal Charges Have Been Filed?

As reported in the Washington Post, Hadden is facing six counts of enticing women to engage in illegal sex acts. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to the Post.

Weren’t Dr. Robert Hadden Accusations Resolved in a Plea Deal?

In 2016, Hadden pleaded guilty to a single felony count of a criminal sexual act in the third degree and a single misdemeanor count of forcible touching. He lost his medical license but never faced jail time. The new charges are linked to new allegations.

While the plea deal required Hadden to register as a sex offender, it downgraded his sex offender status to the lowest level—which meant he wasn’t listed in New York’s online sex offender registry.

“That guy is a dangerous predator and they basically let him go,” a Manhattan criminal defense attorney familiar with the details told Buzzfeed News. “He got a deal of the century, and people want to know why.”

Hadden, Columbia University, and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where Hadden had been on staff, are all named defendants in lawsuits filed by more than 100 former patients who have come forward with Dr. Robert Hadden accusations of sexual abuse, according to the New York Post. Dozens of plaintiffs came forward after Evelyn Yang, wife of former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, spoke out about her own experience with Hadden.

“The allegations show that Hadden acted as a predator in a white coat,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement after the recent allegations and Hadden’s subsequent arrest. “He allegedly used the cover of conducting medical examinations to engage in sexual abuse that he passed off as normal and medically necessary, when it was neither normal nor necessary—it was criminal.”

Women have accused Hadden of verbal abuse, touching their genitals without gloves, and licking their genitals during medical exams. The plaintiffs are adult women and two minors, aged 15 and 16.

“The abusive behavior alleged here took place over the course of nearly two decades, which means there could be many victims out there we have not heard from,” said William Sweeney Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s New York Field Office.

If you or someone you love suffered sexual abuse by Dr. Robert Hadden while he worked at Columbia University, you may be able to join this class action lawsuit investigation to pursue both compensation and justice.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.