A trial date has been set in the federal prosecution of Dr. Robert Hadden, the New York gynecologist charged with sexual abuse of his patients and who struck a plea deal with state prosecutors over similar charges in 2016 that ended with the doctor serving no jail time.

Hadden, who is out on $1 million bond, will go on trial in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan starting July 6. He was arrested in September and charged in relation to six cases of sexual misconduct that allegedly took place at medical offices connected to Columbia University over a span of about 20 years.

The charges against him include enticing and inducing individuals to travel interstate to engage in illegal sexual activity. He has denied the charges and entered a not-guilty plea.

Federal prosecutors took up the case against Hadden after Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office signed off on a plea deal with the doctor in 2016 that cost him his medical license but did not require him to serve any time. In that case, state prosecutors investigated claims by 19 of Hadden’s former patients and witnesses claiming he sexually abused them.

Hadden pleaded guilty to felony counts of a third-degree criminal sex act and forcible touching related to two of the alleged victims. He was officially designated a sexual offender, but at the lowest level, which meant he was not listed in New York state’s online sex offender registry, and charges related to nearly 20 other accusers were dropped.

Furious over the outcome, two of Hadden’s alleged victims held a press conference in January calling for Vance’s resignation over what one of them called “the deal of the century.”

Hadden’s lawyer in the previous case, Isabelle Kirschner, has asked for the court’s permission to withdraw from representing the doctor due to his inability to pay for her services. She has asked that he be assigned a court-appointed attorney instead, the New York Post reported, but so far District Judge Richard Berman has refused. He said Hadden will have to submit financial documentation to the court to support his claims of poverty.

Kirschner recently revealed one of the reasons she was able to negotiate such a light sentence for Hadden was because the district attorney’s office was caught withholding evidence from the defense.

The Hadden case gained notoriety in late 2019 when several more women stepped forward publicly saying they, too, were victims of sexual abuse at the doctor’s hands, including Evelyn Yang, the wife of Andrew Yang, who was a Democratic candidate for president at the time. Yang gave an on-camera interview to CNN recounting her experience with Hadden, saying he sexually abused her while she was pregnant and under his care in 2012.

Yang’s television interview let more accusers to come forward to investigators and lawyers for some of the victims, who had filed a class action lawsuit against Hadden.

A group of Hadden’s former patients filed a class action lawsuit against him and Columbia University in 2018 saying the doctor “sexually exploited, abused, harassed and molested” the plaintiffs — two of whom were minors at the time. Columbia knew about Hadden’s sexual misconduct but covered it up for years, the class action lawsuit claims.

Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit say the university “actively and deliberately — and inexplicably — concealed Robert Hadden’s sexual abuse for decades, and continued to grant Robert Hadden unfettered access to vulnerable, unsuspecting, pregnant and non-pregnant female patients.”

The class action lawsuit against Hadden and Columbia University is ongoing.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss issued a statement at the time of Hadden’s arrest, claiming that between 1993 and 2012, the doctor sexually abused dozens of women and girls during OB/GYN examinations at his medical offices and “used the examinations of his victims for his own sexual gratification … including multiple minor girls, one of whom Hadden had himself delivered.”

Strauss also referred to the doctor as a “predator in a white coat.”

The patients he is charged with abusing traveled from out of state for their appointments with Hadden, National Public Radio reported.

Each count he is charged with carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Have you even been treated by Dr. Robert Hadden or subjected to sexual abuse by him? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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