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This story contains graphic descriptions of alleged sexual assaults.
Washington (CNN) - Evelyn Yang was reading letters that voters had sent her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, and suddenly stopped dead.
One woman wrote that she had decided to file sexual assault charges against an investor in her company because she had heard Yang speak in the campaign about how women entrepreneurs do not receive enough support.
“That was enough for her to make that life-altering decision, and that was very powerful. I remember reading that letter and others and saying: 'I feel you. I wish I could contact you and tell you that I understand. I have my own story, '”Evelyn Yang told CNN.
In fact, she says her own story of sexual assault was so secret that she never shared it with most of her family, including her parents.
But Evelyn Yang says the overwhelming response, and the gratitude of the voters, that she and her husband receive when they talk openly about her son Christopher's autism made her feel empowered again. Then she contacted CNN to make it public for the first time.
"Something about being on the road and meeting people and seeing the difference we have been making has led me to share my own story about it, about sexual assault," he said.
Like the multiple accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, Yang's story is one in which he says that justice was late and for the most part he was denied, which increases the pain she and other victims experience even after informing and sharing their stories. Yang wants to change this.
“Everyone has their own MeToo story. It's too frequent, ”added Yang. “But not everyone can tell their story. Not everyone has the audience or the platform to tell their story, and I really feel that I am in this privileged position to be able to do it. ”
“I knew it was wrong. I knew I was being attacked ”
It was in early 2012. Yang, pregnant with her first child, had found an obstetrician gynecologist who had a good reputation and worked in world-renowned medical facilities at Columbia University. His name was Dr. Robert Hadden.
Initially, she says, she didn't see any warning signs, but as the months went by, Hadden began asking her inappropriate and unsolicited questions about sexual activity with her husband, which were not related to her health or the health of her son. be born. Looking back, he now believes he was preparing her for sexual abuse.
“There was absolutely no premise for that line of questions, and it seemed that he just wanted to hear me talking about sex. What kept me true to this was: 'OK, so my doctor is perverted. I have a perverted doctor, but I'm going to focus on having a healthy baby, 'and the idea of changing doctors was overwhelming for me. ”
Going to the gynecologist is an experience that makes many women feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Going during pregnancy adds a completely different level of anxiety, especially during a first pregnancy, when a woman may not know what to expect. Yang says that Hadden took advantage of that.
"The exams got longer, more frequent, and I found out they were unnecessary most of the time," she recalled, but said to herself: "I guess I just need to trust him."
Yang says that Hadden violated that trust in an unthinkable way when he was seven months pregnant.
“I was in the review room, dressed and ready to go. Then, at the last minute, he invented an excuse. He said something like: 'I think you might need a C-section' and proceeded to approach me and undress and examine me internally, without gloves, ”he recalled.
“I knew it was wrong. I knew I was under attack. ”
Like many survivors of sexual assault, Yang said he had always thought he would flee in a situation like that. But that was not what happened.
“I imagined myself as someone, as if I were going to throw a chair and run away screaming damn killer,” said Yang.
“I just froze like a deer before the headlights of a car, just frozen. I knew it was happening. I could feel it, ”he added. "I remember trying to fix my eyes in a place on the wall and trying to avoid seeing his face while he was attacking me, waiting for it to end."
Hadden left the room without washing his hands, Yang said. She left the office and never returned.
In legal documents, Hadden's lawyer denied Yang's accusations. The lawyer rejected CNN's request for an interview.
Yang repeatedly mentions how she blamed herself for a long time.
"I thought I had done something that invited this kind of behavior," he said.
"I feel I endured inappropriate behavior that at that time I didn't know was sexual abuse / sexual assault until much later, and I'm sorry I endured that," he added.
Despite the trauma, and having to urgently seek a new doctor to take care of her during the rest of the pregnancy, Yang did not tell anyone what had happened to her, not even her husband.
"I didn't tell Andrew or my family because I didn't want to disturb them," he said. I thought: 'This happened to me. I can process it. I can deal with it. I can compartmentalize it. ”
She also hid it from her husband because she was worried that she thought it was his fault, since she did not accompany her to Hadden's appointments. At that time, I traveled a lot for the nonprofit organization that had started. She says she never asked him to go to the doctor's office.
"I certainly didn't want Andrew to blame himself for not being able to accompany me to these doctor visits because honestly, if he had been with me in the room, if someone had been with me in the room, obviously this would not have happened," he said.
"I was not alone"
Many months later, after his son Christopher was born, a letter arrived in the mail telling him that Hadden had left his office.
"I got goosebumps and I thought, what if this has something to do with what happened to me?"
He searched for Hadden on Google and found a story that said another woman alleged that he had assaulted her and reported him to the police.
“And at that moment, everything stopped. It was this sense of relief to finally realize that I was not alone in this, ”he said, adding that he instantly stopped blaming himself for what had happened to him.
“It was not something I did. This was a serial predator and he simply chose me as his prey, ”he said.
Finally, she decided to tell her husband.
“I needed to share it at the time because it seemed very big and I needed that support. And I told him, and he cried, ”said Evelyn Yang.
He told her he remembered that she returned home one day ranting about how men should never be allowed to be obstetric gynecologists.
“He remembered that he had made this comment and felt very bad. He felt guilty for not making the connection or asking me more, ”he said.“ He felt terrible for me, and I think that's what he was trying to avoid by not telling her. ”
In a statement, issued Thursday, Andrew Yang said his "heart is broken" when he thinks about it.
“I am extraordinarily proud of Evelyn for telling her story, and my heart breaks every time I think about what she had to experience. She is my best friend and the bravest woman I know, "said Andrew Yang." No one deserves to be hurt and treated the same way she and many other women have been. When victims of abuse arise, they deserve to be created, they deserve our support and our protection. I hope that Evelyn's story gives strength to those who have suffered and sends a clear message that our institutions must do more to protect and respond to women. ”
Processed by the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office involved in the Epstein and Weinstein cases
Evelyn Yang found a lawyer, who discovered that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had an open case against Hadden. Several other women had presented similar stories of being attacked by Hadden while he was her gynecologist.
“That was something that changed my life. I mean, I felt I wasn't alone, and I felt so good that I wasn't alone in this, ”he said.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Cy Vance, is the same one who was lenient with Jeffrey Epstein upon registering as a sex offender and initially had not prosecuted Harvey Weinstein after allegations of sexual abuse. Weinstein is being tried on rape charges in New York City and has pleaded not guilty.
Yang worked with an assistant district attorney, Laura Millendorf, whose office collected information from 18 female Hadden patients, including Yang, who accused him of assaulting them. Yang testified before an investigative jury, which accused Hadden of multiple serious crimes.
Millendorf, said Yang, assured him that they were building a solid case to take Hadden to jail.
Then, he said, he stopped hearing from Millendorf and spent many months without contact.
In 2016, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office approved an agreement with Hadden. He pleaded guilty to two of the nine charges against him: a charge of touching by force and a charge of sexual abuse in the third degree. As part of the agreement, Hadden would lose his medical license and register as a lower level sex offender, but would not go to jail.
Yang said Millendorf had trouble hiding his disappointment. “It sounded like apologizing. He told me that the deal was made above his head, that it was taken out of negotiations because he was pressing for jail, ”Yang said of Millendorf.
“It sounded like I was not in favor of that result, but tried to be positive and sell it to me as well. At least he's out of the streets, he's not practicing anymore, he can't do this anymore to anyone else, ”added Yang.
Millendorf declined to comment, through a city spokesman.
In a statement to CNN, Vance said: “Dr. Hadden was a serial sexual predator who used his access and his power to take advantage of women in their most vulnerable states. We support all their survivors and applaud their strength and courage. Because a conviction is never a guaranteed result in a criminal trial, our main concern was that he took responsibility and made sure that he could never do it again, so we insist on a felony conviction and the permanent delivery of his license medical Although we defend our legal analysis and the disposition resulting from this difficult case, we regret that this resolution has caused pain to the victims. ”
Yang added that she was also frustrated because she was not given the opportunity to speak directly before the judge when Hadden was sentenced.
“They flatly denied me, they flatly denied it to other women. And that was very strategic. It was very strategic so that the judge was not influenced. If there were dozens of women in court saying that this man had attacked them to this point, perhaps the judge would have said: “Why don't you go to jail? Why don't they look for jail time?
Women sue Columbia University for alleged cover-up
Hadden had lost his medical license and Yang said Millendorf had told him that he should feel good about his role for that to happen. But Hadden had pleaded guilty to assaulting only two women and Yang was not one of them.
"They said the punishment was the same regardless of that ... so it didn't matter," he said. "I thought: 'Well, I care, for obvious reasons.'"
It wasn't until after the #MeToo movement, and the Weinstein case, that the victims in this case realized that they had been betrayed twice, said Yang.
“It's like receiving a slap in the face and a punch in the stomach. The District Attorney's Office is intended to protect us, to serve justice, and there was no justice here. ”
Yang also blames Columbia University, which runs the medical center where Hadden was consulting and, according to her, protected him. Six weeks before Yang said he was assaulted in 2012, the police went to Hadden's office and arrested him after a patient told police he had licked her vagina during an exam.
Hadden's arrest was annulled and he was allowed to return to work. The accusation of aggression, which led to his arrest, was included in the accusation against him two years later.
“What happened to me should never have happened. He was arrested in his office, ”said Yang, and returned to work shortly after. "I mean, at least, the least would be to make sure there is an assistant all the time, and that is why it is very painful to know that in reality what happened to me could have been avoided."
“Can you imagine the audacity of a man who continues to do this after being arrested? It is as if he knew he would not face any repercussions. I was protected. I wouldn't be fired, ”added Yang.
Yang and 31 other women are now suing Columbia University, its affiliates and Hadden, arguing that they "actively hid, conspired and allowed" the sexual exploitation of Hadden, which according to the lawsuit occurred since 1992.
Yang's civil lawsuit details a litany of accusations of sexual assault against Hadden, including performing multiple unnecessary examinations, forcing patients to undress, touching their breasts and bodies, digitally penetrating their vaginas and years and “surreptitiously licking the vaginas of countless patients. "
The lawsuit alleges that the medical assistants who worked with Hadden knew about their sexual abuse, but due to lack of training and a “hidden power imbalance” they did not intervene, and that the University of Columbia “kept the complaints secret to avoid negative publicity” .
In court documents, Hadden has denied the accusations, except those of his previous guilty plea.
Columbia University and the hospital system have challenged the lawsuit for procedural reasons.
In response to detailed questions about the accusations against the university, including why Hadden had been allowed to return to work after his initial arrest, a spokeswoman for the house of studies said the accusations against Hadden are "abominable" and apologize deeply with those whose trust was violated. ”
Evelyn and Andrew Yang have degrees from Columbia University, adding another layer of pain for the family.
"This is a prestigious university behind this doctor, who uses his influence to protect himself at the expense of the victims in the case," said Evelyn Yang.
Why make it public now?
Yang fought in court for more than two years to maintain his anonymous identity in relation to legal action against Hadden. First, he said, because he is a private person, and second, because he had not told most of his family, including his parents, even when he sat down with CNN for the interview.
She also says that Hadden's legal team fought against the fact that she could remain anonymous to try to intimidate her. But her time in the campaign, talking with women, forced her to introduce herself.
“My experience with sexual assault and everything that happened next is such a powerful and disturbing example of the truth with which women live every day. And it turns out that I can have a platform to talk about that, ”said Yang.
She realizes that at this moment, with her husband's presidential aspiration, she has a voice that could make a difference, both for other Hadden survivors and for the women who have been through this.
"I need to use that voice," he said. "I feel that it is something that is an obligation, but also a privilege and a gift that I can share now and also help other women."
Getting to this point has been very tiring and difficult for her. Like many survivors of sexual abuse and assault, she says that every time she talks about it, she is transported back to what happened, and all the trauma that it entails.
"That is my great hope: to empower myself and to empower other women," said Yang. "This is something very difficult to reveal, but I hope, and I have to believe, it's worth it."
Drew Griffin of CNN contributed to this report.
Andrew Yang