Columbia University to pay $165 million to 147 women abused by former gynecologist

FBI poster after the arrest of Dr. Robert Hadden, in 2020. John Minchillo (AP)

Columbia University and two affiliated hospitals, Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian, announced Friday that they have reached an agreement to pay $165 million to 147 patients of a former gynecologist accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women. including Evelyn Yang, the wife of former US presidential candidate and New York mayor Andrew Yang.

Robert A. Hadden, who according to the two university hospitals has not worked as a doctor since 2012, pleaded guilty in 2016 to abusing 19 women but escaped jail time.

Now, he is awaiting trial on federal charges of seducing and enticing women, including a minor, to travel from out of New York state to his Manhattan offices to molest them.

The hospitals will set up a compensation fund to distribute the money, according to a university news release reported by

.

The settlement follows another, worth $71.5 million, reached last year between the hospitals and 79 of their former patients, represented by a different lawyer.

In searches on the case on Google, the claim of a major New York law firm specializing in sexual abuse still appears in first place under the heading "Victims of Robert Hadden."

"We deeply regret the pain suffered by Robert Hadden's patients and hope that these settlements will bring some relief to the women he harmed," Columbia University Irving Medical Center said in the statement.

The investigation began in 2012 after a patient told police that the doctor, still active at the time, had touched her with sexual intent while examining her.

Six women made similar allegations.

In 2014, he was charged with five counts of criminal sexual act, two counts of groping and two counts of sexual abuse.

But in a plea deal with the Manhattan district attorney's office, Hadden pleaded guilty to a single count of criminal sexual act in the third degree, and one count of misdemeanor forcible touching.

The prosecution agreed not to ask for prison sentences and promised not to file new accusations of sexual abuse against him.

His sex offender status was reduced so that he would be statute-barred at age 20 and his name would not be included on an online offender list.

The lax approach by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, to sex crimes was the target of criticism.

The scrutiny of Vance, who retired last December, increased when it was learned that his office had requested that pedophile Jeffrey Epstein be given the lowest grade of sex offender in 2011,

recalls .

In 2020, referring to Dr. Hadden, candidate Yang's wife said in an interview with CNN that she had been sexually assaulted during a consultation in 2012, when she was pregnant.

"She was dressed and ready to go," said Evelyn Yang.

“So at the last minute, an excuse was made up.

She was like, 'I think you might need a C-section,' and she grabbed me and pulled me towards her to strip and examine me internally, without gloves."

Yang testified in 2014 before the grand jury that she first accused Hadden, and she is also among the women who sued Columbia University and the hospitals.

Hadden's case is one of the most high-profile involving predatory behavior by a doctor.

Last year, the University of Southern California agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion to former patients of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually exploiting hundreds of women.

That same year, more than 500 girls and women who had been abused by Lawrence G. Nassar, a former gymnastics national team doctor, reached a $380 million settlement with USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. .

In July, a renowned pain medicine specialist, Ricardo Cruciani, was found guilty in Manhattan of 12 counts of sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape and other crimes.

In August, the doctor was found dead from a suspected suicide in his Rikers Island jail cell.