{"id":14796,"date":"2023-09-12T23:12:57","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T06:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14796"},"modified":"2023-09-18T21:48:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T04:48:35","slug":"how-columbia-ignored-women-undermined-prosecutors-and-protected-a-predator-for-more-than-20-years-pro-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14796","title":{"rendered":"“How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years”, Pro Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Co-published with New York Magazine<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0Bianca Fortis, ProPublica, and\u00a0Laura Beil, photography by\u00a0Hannah Whitaker\u00a0for\u00a0New York Magazine<\/a><\/strong>, Sept. 12, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep working<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories<\/a> as soon as they\u2019re published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story includes detailed descriptions of sexual assaults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story includes detailed descriptions of sexual assaults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurie Kanyok was 38,<\/strong> a professional dancer on the cusp of retirement, when she learned she was pregnant. She had already suffered one miscarriage and had recently undergone a spinal treatment that she feared would increase the risk of birth defects. Kanyok booked an appointment with an obstetrician, Robert Hadden of Columbia University. She felt grateful to be in the care of someone who had spent his entire career at such a distinguished institution.Virginia\u2019s Public Universities Have a Long History of Displacing Black Residents<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, Kanyok liked Hadden, who had a soft-spoken, fatherly way. With his prim, grayish beard and wire-rimmed glasses, he reminded her of \u201ca skinny Santa Claus,\u201d as she later put it. But there was one time when, heels in the stirrups, she thought she felt a flicker of something moist on her vagina. During another appointment, Hadden palpated Kanyok\u2019s cervix with such force that his fingers lifted her from the exam table. She heard him moan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you need help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or chat online at online.rainn.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok dismissed Hadden\u2019s strange behavior, focusing on her baby. \u201cYou put yourself aside at that point, right?\u201d she says. \u201cYou want to see a heartbeat. You want to know that the umbilical cord isn\u2019t wrapped around the neck. And then you want to know that you\u2019re going to get to the finish line, deliver and go home. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six weeks after giving birth to a daughter, on a Friday in late June 2012, Kanyok returned to Columbia\u2019s suite of offices on East 60th Street for a checkup. She looked idly at her phone as Hadden examined her. He assured her that all looked good, and the nurse chaperoning the exam left the room. Hadden started to follow her out. Then he paused, turned, and told Kanyok that he\u2019d forgotten to check her stitches. He instructed her to lie down again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beneath the paper blanket covering her knees, between her legs, the assault this time was unmistakable. Kanyok jolted back and saw Hadden\u2019s face surface, bright red. She froze as he chattered nervously and performed what he told her was a breast exam. She texted her boyfriend. \u201cDr Hadden just licked my vagina,\u201d she typed. \u201cI\u2019m shaking And freaked out.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.Email address:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok\u2019s boyfriend ran to the street and handed $50 to a black-car driver for the short ride to Hadden\u2019s office. He collected Kanyok and called 911 twice, first on the drive back to their apartment and again once they got inside. He struggled to articulate what had just happened. \u201cHow do you even verbalize this horrendous act of an OB-GYN from a super-renowned place like Columbia?\u201d he recalls. He told the 911 operator that his girlfriend\u2019s doctor had \u201ctouched her orally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, Kanyok and her boyfriend buzzed up two NYPD officers. As the police took their statements, Kanyok\u2019s phone rang. It was Hadden. He left a voicemail, which Kanyok played for the group on speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi Laurie, it\u2019s Dr. Hadden calling,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like 4:30 on Friday. You know, I just got word that you called the office and you\u2019re upset and you\u2019re calling the police. What \u2014 what the heck happened? What\u2019s going on? Please, can we talk? Um. If you can, please just give the office a call and, you know \u2014 or come back and talk face-to-face. I, I, I don\u2019t \u2014 I don\u2019t understand. I just know that \u2014 I just got word from the \u2014 first, from the secretary, and then from our office manager and the nurse. So I\u2019m<\/em> very upset. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. So please, please call me back. All right. Take care.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the voice message Hadden left Kanyok while she was giving her statement to the police.

The officers glanced at one another and then at Kanyok. \u201cFuck him,\u201d she remembers them saying. \u201cLet\u2019s go get this pig.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadden was arrested at his office later on Friday. Mary D\u2019Alton, the head of Columbia\u2019s OB-GYN department, went to the clinic when she heard police were on the scene. Meanwhile, a squad car took Kanyok to St. Luke\u2019s Hospital for a rape-kit examination, then to meet with a prosecutor. She returned home around 11 p.m. After a long shower, she peeked in at her baby. \u201cMy daughter\u2019s asleep,<\/em>\u201d she recalls thinking, \u201cand I am safe. Everybody is safe.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok didn\u2019t know that Hadden had already been released from custody. On Saturday, police spoke with the department\u2019s administrator, Jeanne Dellicarri. On Monday, Hadden received a hand-delivered letter from Columbia<\/a>. \u201cDear Bob,\u201d it began. \u201cI write to inform you of the position of the University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital with respect to the allegations against you currently being investigated by the New York City Police Department.\u201d The letter said that if Hadden had a chaperone with him while examining patients, and if he complied with all university and hospital policies, he was free \u201cto resume clinical activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The document was signed by Hadden\u2019s immediate supervisor, John Evanko. He CC\u2019d D\u2019Alton; Robert Kelly, then the president of NewYork-Presbyterian, the Columbia-affiliated hospital system in which Hadden was an attending doctor; and Lee Goldman, then the dean of Columbia\u2019s medical school, where Hadden was a member of the faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Hadden was back in the exam room. Columbia let him continue practicing for another five weeks. Eight patients say he assaulted them in that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Columbia University \u2014<\/strong> where Robert Hadden spent his entire medical career \u2014 has never fully accounted for its role in allowing a predator to operate unchecked for decades. To date, more than 245 patients have alleged that Hadden abused them, which by itself could make him one of the most prolific sexual assailants in New York history. But the total number of victims may be far higher. On any given day during his two decades of practice at Columbia, Hadden saw 25 to 40 patients. Tens of thousands came under his care. A baby girl he delivered grew up to be a teenager he allegedly assaulted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadden, 65, was sentenced in July to 20 years in federal prison \u2014 the result of a long, arduous process that Columbia often undermined. One of the country\u2019s most acclaimed private universities was deeply involved in containing, deflecting and distancing itself from the scandal at every step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the Podcast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Follow Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University<\/a> on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In agreeing to pay $236.5 million to resolve lawsuits brought by 226 of Hadden\u2019s victims, Columbia admitted no fault, which is in keeping with public statements over the years placing the blame for what happened solely on Hadden. But the university\u2019s own records show that women repeatedly tried to warn Columbia doctors and staff about Hadden. At least twice, the fact that Hadden\u2019s bosses in the OB-GYN department knew of the women\u2019s concerns was acknowledged in writing. They allowed him to continue practicing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Hadden\u2019s crimes became clear, Columbia worked to tamp down the crisis. It waited months to tell his patients that he was no longer working, and then sent matter-of-fact letters that omitted the reason. After police and local prosecutors began to investigate Hadden in 2012, Columbia failed to hand over evidence in its possession, despite subpoenas that compelled it to do so. The university also did not tell the district attorney when more patients came forward \u2014 witnesses who could have strengthened the case prosecutors were trying to build. The DA found Columbia\u2019s conduct so concerning that the office launched a criminal investigation into the university itself, along with the affiliated hospital where Hadden had admitting privileges. The inquiry found that Columbia had, by neglecting to place document-retention holds, \u201cintended to destroy\u201d emails written by Hadden and his former colleagues who had left the university. The DA found the records because they were \u201cinadvertently left on an old server.\u201d (Columbia disputes this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local investigation of Hadden ended in a 2016 deal that allowed him to avoid serving a single day in jail. Cyrus Vance Jr., who was DA at the time, says that if Columbia had fully cooperated, it might have made a difference in his office\u2019s decision to accept a plea. \u201cObviously that did not happen,\u201d Vance says. His former deputy, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, is more direct. Columbia, she says, \u201cdidn\u2019t have clean hands here. If they didn\u2019t know, it\u2019s because they chose not to know.\u201d Hadden remained free until his victims began to go public in such numbers that federal investigators took up the case in 2020 and secured his conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The mug shot from Hadden\u2019s 2020 arrest Credit: Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In recent decades, several university medical systems have provided cover for abusive doctors whose victim counts run well into the hundreds. Columbia\u2019s failures stand out even in this grim company. Unlike at Michigan State \u2014 where Larry Nassar sexually assaulted young gymnasts under the guise of medical care \u2014 no Columbia administrators are known to have lost their jobs. Unlike at the University of Michigan \u2014 where an athletics department doctor abused mostly male students \u2014 Columbia never commissioned an independent investigation into what happened under its roof. Unlike at the University of Southern California \u2014 where a staff gynecologist\u2019s abuse led to a billion dollar settlement\u2014 Columbia\u2019s president, Lee Bollinger, did not resign when the enormity of Hadden\u2019s crimes came to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Bollinger retired in June, celebrated by a university that continues to uphold itself as a place where eternal virtues are taught and practiced. The announcement of Bollinger\u2019s successor, Minouche Shafik, noted that her most recent book is \u201cWhat We Owe Each Other,\u201d \u201cin which she calls for a better social contract to underpin our economic system and challenges institutions and individuals to rethink how we can better support each other to thrive.\u201d Meanwhile, in the Hadden case, Columbia\u2019s pattern of defensive behavior is ongoing. The university still hasn\u2019t informed patients that their former doctor is a convicted sex offender. And Columbia is aggressively fighting new lawsuits from victims, arguing in one case this year that it should not be held liable because Hadden\u2019s actions were \u201coutside the scope of his employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia has long been one of the most powerful and respected institutions in New York. It has a $13 billion endowment, it is one of the city\u2019s largest private landowners and its board of trustees is stacked with titans of finance and government. But the university declined to make any of its leaders available for interviews. In emailed statements<\/a>, an unnamed spokesperson wrote that Columbia was \u201cprofoundly sorry for the pain that Robert Hadden\u2019s patients suffered as a result of his abhorrent misconduct,\u201d before reemphasizing that he \u201cpurposely worked to evade oversight and engineer situations in which he would abuse his patients.\u201d The statement continued, \u201cWe also deeply regret, based on what we know today, that Hadden saw patients for several weeks following his voided arrest in 2012.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disconnect between Columbia\u2019s approach and its stated commitment to \u201cthe highest standards of ethical conduct\u201d remains inexplicable to many people involved in the Hadden affair, including Agnifilo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m struggling for words because it\u2019s actually head-scratching,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are the best of the best. How could they put someone back the next day after she went to the police? It makes no sense to me. It would be one thing if they just said, \u2018You know what, we talked to her \u2014 we didn\u2019t believe her.\u2019 But they didn\u2019t even do that.\u201d She is referring to the fact that Columbia\u2019s internal investigation of Kanyok\u2019s allegations failed to interview Kanyok herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We attempted to contact more than 100 of Hadden\u2019s former colleagues. Only one doctor, Jennifer Tam, would speak openly. She is no longer practicing medicine. \u201cI would like to think if I was still at Columbia, I would go on the record, but I could see how the threat of repercussions would keep people from speaking,\u201d she says. She recalls being surprised to learn that Hadden had been arrested \u2014 and then thinking about how easily any concerns about him could have been rationalized in the workplace she had known. She says there was an ethos at Columbia of keeping quiet about anything that could reflect poorly on the university. \u201cIf there was something that wasn\u2019t perfect, you better not talk about it,\u201d she says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to ruin the reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was nothing<\/strong> particularly special about Robert Hadden that would make Columbia want to protect him. He wasn\u2019t a prominent physician with a roster of elite clients. He wasn\u2019t attracting millions of research dollars or in demand on the academic lecture circuit. He was one of dozens of OB-GYNs employed by the university, outwardly unremarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadden grew up in Garden City, a suburb on Long Island, in an environment that a federal judge later described as traumatic. His family, the judge said, included a mother who had alcoholism, an absentee father and three siblings with whom Robert \u201cshared a sexual dynamic.\u201d At Skidmore College, in the class of 1980, he tended to shrink into the background. \u201cSomewhat of a phantom,\u201d recalls one of his classmates. Another says it were as if he had a Romulan Cloaking Device from \u201cStar Trek\u201d that allowed him to suddenly appear out of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadden completed a graduate program in Florida before applying to medical school. Failing to get in anywhere in the U.S., he enrolled instead at St. George\u2019s University in Grenada. He transferred to New York Medical College and, after graduating in 1987, continued his training as a resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, as now, the university played a leading role in a health care network that was vast and interconnected, from its medical school to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (the hospital was later renamed after a merger) to a system of clinics across the city, where doctors in a range of specialties treated thousands of patients. Hadden rose to chief resident of the OB-GYN department at Columbia\u2019s main hospital campus in 1990 and became a member of the medical school faculty. Tam, his former colleague, recalls him as someone who was generally quiet, if slightly awkward. Still, she says, he seemed popular with patients, some of whom traveled from other states because he seemed to offer unusually personal and thorough attention. Hadden\u2019s friendliness also endeared him to his staff. \u201cThere was not one person who didn\u2019t love Dr. Hadden,\u201d says Willie Terry, who was then working with Hadden as a medical assistant at Columbia\u2019s clinic in Washington Heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One morning, Terry later testified in federal court, she realized she\u2019d forgotten her stethoscope in a room where she had been assisting Hadden. She knocked softly and opened the door. The patient was on the examination table with a sheet over her legs. Terry saw Hadden at the end of the table, one foot on the floor and the other on a step stool. His left hand pressed against the patient\u2019s knee, holding her leg open, while the other hand moved under the sheet in a way Terry knew was not medical. Hadden\u2019s eyes were shut tight. His face was red and turned toward the ceiling. Terry jumped back and shut the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe man that I saw sent shock waves all over my body,\u201d Terry says. \u201cI said, \u2018Dear God, what was that?\u2019\u201d She never reported what she saw. She was certain that her word would have little weight against a doctor\u2019s, and she wasn\u2019t the only person who felt that way. A labor and delivery nurse who began working for Columbia in the early 1990s later testified that she saw Hadden move his fingers sexually around the labia of women in labor every time he checked for cervical dilation. \u201cI\u2019ve watched porn and I\u2019ve had sex and it seemed sexual to me,\u201d she said. An attorney pressed her on why she had not blown the whistle. \u201cHistorically, there has always been a hierarchy between physicians and nurses, and I felt that I didn\u2019t have a voice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on, Hadden seemed to target patients who had little context for a normal exam, including women who had never seen an OB-GYN or who were pregnant for the first time. Those who did not realize that a breast exam is not required during every prenatal visit and is properly performed one breast at a time, swiftly, using only the pads of the fingers. Those who did not know that a \u201cscoliosis check\u201d or \u201cmole check\u201d while completely undressed is not standard care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such patient, a 16-year-old girl from the Bronx, went to see Hadden in 1992. She was five weeks pregnant and had never seen an OB-GYN. She remembers Hadden conducting a prolonged exam that was \u201cvery rough,\u201d and he did not stop even when she told him he was hurting her, according to federal court filings. A week later, her boyfriend\u2019s mother brought her back to the clinic to file a complaint. A receptionist gave her a sticky note with a phone number. After calling several times, the girl finally reached a live voice and said that a doctor in the clinic had made her uncomfortable. She was transferred around and left a few voicemails. \u201cNo one seemed to care,\u201d she says. She could never get anyone at Columbia in a position of authority to speak to her directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Columbia ignored<\/strong> older women with better resources, too. In 1993, Dian Saderup Monson was living in New York, pursuing her doctorate in American literature, when she became pregnant for the second time. She was looking for an obstetrician closer to her home, and a friend recommended \u201cthis newish doctor,\u201d she recalls. \u201cPeople think he\u2019s very personable. He\u2019s very warm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On an October morning, Monson went to her first appointment with Hadden, and they proceeded from a get-to-know-you chat in his office to an exam room. Monson knew immediately that the breast check, prolonged and whole-handed, was not normal; she asked Hadden if he\u2019d felt something concerning. She remembers that during both the breast and pelvic exams, the medical assistant turned her back to face the counter as if she had something to do there. But the counter was empty. As soon as Hadden left the room, Monson felt the assistant\u2019s eyes boring into her. \u201cI felt like she was telling me, \u2018Don\u2019t come back,\u2019\u201d Monson says. She did not fully process that she had been sexually assaulted until hours later, sitting alone on her sofa. \u201cIt was like a revelation,\u201d she says. \u201cI just suddenly knew. I was just sobbing. I understood what had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monson and her husband ruled out calling the police. It would be her word against Hadden\u2019s, and he could discredit her simply by saying that a chaperone had been in the room. But Monson realized that there was one thing she could do. She was a writer. If she created a document for Hadden\u2019s personnel file at Columbia, she thought, more evidence would surely follow. \u201cWhat is their threshold for acting on a complaint against a physician?\u201d she remembers thinking. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s three people, maybe it\u2019s four, but they\u2019ll reach that threshold pretty quickly. And they will get rid of this doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, she dreaded the task and put it off for months. Just a week before her daughter was born, Monson dragged her bulky Hewlett-Packard laptop into her son\u2019s room, sat at his student desk, and typed a letter. She chose impassive clinical language so she would not be dismissed as emotional. \u201cI have never, until being examined by Dr. Hadden, been disturbed by the way a breast or pelvic exam was conducted,\u201d she wrote. She described the sexual ways he touched her in detail. \u201cIt is not a pleasant prospect to describe on paper an incident that left me ultimately feeling violated. Despite my long delay in making this complaint, however, I continue to feel that Dr. Hadden\u2019s conduct was improper, indeed, grossly so. I have tried to imagine any of my past or current physicians giving the exam he gave me, and I simply cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monson\u2019s husband put two envelopes in the mail. One was addressed to the risk-management department at Columbia, and the second was sent to Harold Fox, the acting head of the OB-GYN department at Columbia-Presbyterian. The risk office never responded. But Monson received a prompt reply from Fox, who said he would investigate and follow up in two weeks. \u201cI was gratified,\u201d she says. \u201cI was like, \u2018Hey, get a load of this!\u2019 to my husband. \u2018Can you believe this? They\u2019re actually taking it really seriously.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the extent of the investigation Fox conducted: He asked the medical assistant whether she had seen anything inappropriate. The assistant said no, and Fox let the matter drop. Fox later testified to a grand jury that Sterling Williams, who was then the vice chairman of the OB-GYN department, had agreed that this effort was adequate. Monson never heard anything from Fox again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadden\u2019s assaults continued. A medical assistant who worked with him at the time recalls questioning, along with her colleagues, why Hadden would often direct them to move on to the next patient before he had completed the exam in progress. Even so, after leaving her position, she returned in 1996 to see Hadden as a patient. She says that as she was lying on the examination table, Hadden rubbed his erect penis on her arm. Stunned and shaken, she told a receptionist that Hadden was a pervert. She recalls that the receptionist replied, \u201cI know\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2000, Hadden\u2019s personnel file included a formal write-up for what was vaguely described as \u201cinappropriate use\u201d of a computer. It was signed by Rogerio Lobo, who was then the head of the OB-GYN department. Within Columbia\u2019s bureaucracy, warning signs both subtle and glaring failed to have any effect. In 2004 or 2005, Katia Herman, a 27-year-old yoga instructor, received a referral to see Hadden from her Columbia obstetrician, Katarina Eisinger. At their first appointment, Hadden assaulted her, she says. Herman returned to Eisinger for her care and eventually decided to tell her what had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You know, Dr. Hadden was really inappropriate with me and made me extremely uncomfortable,\u2019\u201d Herman says. \u201cShe looked at me. She kind of waved her hand. And she was like, \u2018That\u2019s just Dr. Hadden.\u2019\u201d Herman left the appointment feeling like her concerns had been shut down. \u201cI just remember being like, Wait, what the fuck?<\/em>\u201d After giving birth, she stopped going to Eisinger and Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patients at the Washington Heights hospital where Hadden delivered babies, the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, also tried to complain. Eva Santos Veloz was 18 when Hadden assisted her emergency delivery in 2008. During her 18-hour labor, she recalls, Hadden touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable, sometimes while not wearing gloves. Santos Veloz and her mother complained, but they spoke limited English and couldn\u2019t find anyone who spoke Spanish. After the delivery, they informed a bilingual social worker, who took notes and offered information about postpartum depression. No one ever followed up, Santos Veloz says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother encouraged her to file another complaint about Hadden with the hospital, but Santos Veloz says she was too scared. Both women were undocumented, and she thought no one would believe them. \u201cFor years, honestly, I thought that I was making this up in my head,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause at the time that I did try to speak up about it, in the hospital, it was just like, \u2018Nothing really happened,\u2019 and I was just overreacting because I was in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complaints fell on deaf ears in a myriad of ways. Another former patient, Christina Arethas, tried to tell two of Hadden\u2019s colleagues about him. One was Jennifer Tam, the sole doctor who agreed to an interview. Arethas recalls saying to her that Hadden was \u201ccreepy\u201d and that she did not want him to deliver her baby if he was on call when she went into labor. Tam doesn\u2019t remember the conversation; she is devastated that she could have missed warning signs about the doctor. \u201cI feel absolutely terrible knowing what we know now,\u201d she says, beginning to cry. She says she might have assumed Arethas simply didn\u2019t care for Hadden\u2019s personality. \u201cI could never imagine that somebody that I practiced with could be doing this behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Records show that at the time, Columbia had no clear policy for documenting patient complaints or guidance for faculty about how to handle them. In 2007, Columbia circulated a policy requiring chaperones during exams, but several physicians later told the district attorney that they did not recall ever seeing it. In October 2008, another patient made a complaint against Hadden. An administrator named Brenda Cruz sent multiple emails about it and spoke with John Evanko. (None of the Columbia personnel mentioned here responded to detailed questions.) He was still Hadden\u2019s boss four years later, when he signed the letter authorizing him to immediately return to work after the incident with Laurie Kanyok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the NYPD<\/strong> arrested Hadden in June 2012, Columbia acted swiftly to find him a lawyer. That weekend, Helen Cantwell, an attorney representing the university, called Isabelle Kirshner, a prominent defense counselor who had developed what she calls a \u201cniche practice of men behaving badly.\u201d She agreed to represent him. But even Kirshner was puzzled by Columbia\u2019s stance toward Hadden. \u201cI was a little surprised that they let him go back,\u201d she recalls, letting out a chuckle of disbelief. \u201cI have no idea how that came about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Hadden\u2019s first day back at work, he saw a patient who is identified in court as Victim 53. \u201cI was sexually assaulted by a known sexual offender, known by his peers and all levels of hospital management as a sexual predator, literally just 4 days after he was arrested in his medical office and escorted by police out of the building,\u201d she later wrote in a victim-impact statement. \u201cRobert Hadden was actually permitted to RETURN to his medical office and sexually assault me just FOUR days after being arrested for LICKING a patient\u2019s genitals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next several weeks, Kanyok asked friends to call Columbia to check if Hadden was still seeing patients. \u201cI used the words \u2018prank call,\u2019 for lack of a better term,\u201d she says. \u201cThey told me, \u2018I can make an appointment.\u2019 And we would go, \u2018Motherfucker \u2026\u2019\u201d In addition to her outrage, she was mystified by Columbia\u2019s passivity \u2014 the way it didn\u2019t seem to worry about reputational risk. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you want to cover your ass?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia suspended Hadden five weeks after his arrest, when he would not cooperate with an internal investigation. He took a leave of absence in September, and at the end of the year, the university chose not to renew his appointment. Hadden essentially retired, living at home in New Jersey with his wife, Carol, and their son, who has disabilities. He maintained access to his Columbia email address and used it for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The university notified patients that Hadden was gone in a mass mailing<\/a> in April 2013. \u201cDear Valued Patient,\u201d the letter began. \u201cWe regret to inform you that Dr. Robert Hadden has closed his private practice at Columbia University Medical Center.\u201d The letter offered no explanation. It was signed by Katarina Eisinger \u2014 the doctor who Katia Herman says dismissed her concerns eight years before. She was now the chief of Columbia\u2019s General Obstetrics and Gynecology division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney opened an investigation into Hadden. Laura Millendorf, a prosecutor who had grown up in a family of doctors, volunteered to take the case, appalled by Hadden\u2019s profound breaches of trust. \u201cThis was horrific enough that it was worth pushing forward as aggressively as possible,\u201d Millendorf says. She suspected that if Kanyok\u2019s story checked out, there would be more victims. \u201cIt didn\u2019t make sense to me that somebody would graduate immediately to licking the vagina of a patient \u2014 in that position of power, at that age \u2014 from never having done it before,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key evidence in the case would be Kanyok\u2019s testimony. \u201cShe struck me as somebody who would make an excellent witness,\u201d Millendorf says. \u201cShe was poised, smart, well spoken, confident, tough. An incredible memory for detail.\u201d But there was a problem. Police records show that while analysis of Kanyok\u2019s rape kit found genetic material from two males \u2014 one of whom, naturally, was her boyfriend \u2014 the lab could not determine whether the second sample belonged to Hadden. The DA\u2019s office decided to shelve the case. Millendorf called Kanyok to break the news in early 2013. \u201cThe main thing I remember is saying I was sorry,\u201d Millendorf says. \u201cThat stands out because it was not the culture at that time to say that kind of thing. The expectation was to be \u2018Just the facts, ma\u2019am\u2019 \u2014 very stiff and almost cold towards your victims.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok replied, \u201cWell, what do we do? He can\u2019t practice medicine.\u201d She thought a civil suit might achieve some measure of justice and serve as a warning for other women. One day, pushing her daughter in a stroller through the Columbus Circle mall, she took a call from an attorney she knew. \u201cHe goes, \u2018You definitely have a case, but you can\u2019t fight Columbia. You can\u2019t. Just be realistic about what you\u2019re doing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok, along with a friend who had also been a patient and realized she\u2019d been assaulted, sued the university and Hadden anyway in April 2013. A couple of months later, the New York Daily News published a short item about their lawsuit on the bottom corner of page 10. Some of Hadden\u2019s former patients spotted it and came forward. In July, a longer story appeared, this time with a large photo of Hadden and the headline GYNO IS SICKO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That morning, a doctoral candidate named Laurie Maldonado boarded a crowded subway car and saw the tabloid. Overcome by panic, she was still fighting to breathe when she left the train. She had been a Hadden patient for nine years, according to civil filings. She recalls that during a dilation check two days before her son was born, in 2011, Hadden had examined her cervix with such force she cried out in agony. \u201cThe pain that he inflicted on me was more severe than delivering birth,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I gave birth naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other women saw the Daily News articles and began to approach the DA\u2019s office. Millendorf phoned Kanyok to say the case was being reopened. \u201cThere were numbers now,\u201d Kanyok says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evelyn Yang was among the new witnesses. She had been seven months pregnant with her first child when, she says, Hadden assaulted her in July 2012, in the window when Columbia allowed him to see patients after his arrest. Yang did not report what happened or even tell her husband, Andrew. She thought that it must have been a onetime incident that had something to do with her. But she immediately found another doctor to deliver her baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang did not see Columbia\u2019s \u201cDear Valued Patient\u201d form letter until she was going through a stack of unopened mail months later. \u201cAs soon as I read that, I got goose bumps all over my body,\u201d Yang says. \u201cI could feel all the little hairs stand up. The room started to spin. I remember thinking very clearly, Oh my<\/em>gosh, could it be that he did this to someone else?<\/em>\u201d She Googled Hadden and found the Daily News articles. The next thing she put into the search bar was \u201cWhat to do if you\u2019re assaulted by your doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the results was a legal forum. Most of the responses from attorneys were in legalese, but one struck Yang as compassionate. His name was Anthony T. DiPietro, a malpractice lawyer who operated a one-person firm in a shared office. Yang, not even sure what she wanted, called and told him her story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DiPietro believed her instantly. \u201cWhat woman would go to an OB-GYN for seven months when she was pregnant with her first child and then just have to leave?\u201d he says. Yang wanted to force more information about Hadden into the open. DiPietro arranged for her to give a statement to the DA and filed a civil suit on her behalf, identifying her only as a Jane Doe. He held a mini press conference in his office and posted about the case on his blog in August 2013, writing, \u201cColumbia and NYP Hospital nurses and staff members have information about Hadden which has been kept secret for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers for NewYork-Presbyterian objected vigorously, sending a cease-and-desist letter to take down the blog post and issue a retraction. They threatened to sue for libel and to approach the state bar for professional discipline. In court documents, Hadden\u2019s attorneys characterized DiPietro as overzealous, \u201cengaging in hyperbole and distortion,\u201d and said his \u201ctrue agenda is publicity for himself.\u201d They also accused him of trying to \u201csingle-handedly destroy Dr. Hadden and strip him of any of his rights.\u201d Lawyers representing Columbia professed outrage that DiPietro was \u201cusing his unknown client to look for \u2018victims\u2019 and \u2018witnesses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia also embarked on a campaign to force Yang to reveal her identity. In one filing, university lawyers argued that they were in a worse position than she was: \u201cIf the alleged offense is so stigmatizing that plaintiff can be allowed to sue anonymously, does it not follow that merely being accused of having committed the act is as stigmatizing or worse? The accusations alone will cause indelible harm to the hospital and university\u2019s reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Millendorf pressed the criminal case, she became convinced that Hadden had abused far more patients than the handful that had come forward. \u201cI slowly came to realize that I was dealing with a sexual abuser of epic proportions,\u201d she says. \u201cI was talking to victims and learning of victims and witnesses that went back to the \u201990s. I was just doing the math in my head. And I remember thinking, These are only the ones I know about.<\/em> I was trying to do calculations in my head like, How many patients does someone see in a day? Even if he only abused 10% of them, what are the sheer numbers of victims here? There were victims of all ages and backgrounds \u2014 in clinics for people who had no insurance and also fancy offices on the Upper East Side. They were in every office, every age bracket, every ethnic bracket. I remember just being blown away by the numbers. I distinctly remember that when I started to say those numbers out loud, people looked at me like I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strongest evidence in the case would be the victims\u2019 testimony. \u201cMost of them had some sort of hook, some sort of specific detail that made their story ring true,\u201d Millendorf says. \u201cThe way that they knew that he had just put his mouth on their vagina, the way that they knew that it was a tongue they were feeling. These were awkward things to discuss, difficult things to discuss. But they were all really good at it.\u201d By June 2014, Millendorf had gathered enough evidence to indict. Kanyok, Yang and several others testified to a grand jury. Hadden was charged with five felonies and four misdemeanors involving six women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

A successful prosecution<\/strong> would rely in part on Columbia\u2019s cooperation, including complying with demands for documents and alerting the government to important new witnesses. Instead, the university\u2019s conduct helped the case against Hadden to collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after the indictment, in August 2014, a former Hadden patient named Sandra Abramowicz had a panic attack. She was at work in a cardiac research lab \u2014 at Columbia, coincidentally. She entered an equipment closet and thought of an exam with Hadden, a memory she had grappled with and tried to put aside: The sense of being frozen while on the exam table, unable to move. She suddenly began gasping for breath. \u201cAn incredible feeling that something horrible is going to happen,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t stop crying. I felt trapped. Very, very trapped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abramowicz began to reevaluate other memories. She had started going to Hadden in 2011, and at her first visit, he offered to perform a full-body mole check, which she declined. During another exam, Hadden offered graphic, unsolicited advice about sex, gesturing at different positions. \u201cI remember looking at the nurse that was there like, \u2018How do we stop this going on?\u2019\u201d Abramowicz recalls. \u201cAnd she just looked down and sort of to the side. And I just felt then like, OK, I\u2019m alone here<\/em>.\u201d Abramowicz also remembered getting the \u201cDear Valued Patient\u201d letter about Hadden\u2019s departure and asking another Columbia gynecologist about it. \u201cShe very abruptly looked down, avoided my eyes, looked at something on her desk, and said, \u2018I don\u2019t know anything about that,\u2019\u201d Abramowicz says. \u201cI thought, That\u2019s weird<\/em>. Because he was working in the same department. How could you not know why he left?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After her panic attack, Abramowicz met with a different Columbia doctor and asked if there was any medical explanation for the way Hadden had touched her and spoken to her. It was by now clear to Abramowicz that she had been assaulted. The doctor left the room briefly and returned, saying that physicians in the practice had been instructed where to refer patients with complaints about Hadden. The doctor handed Abramowicz a yellow Post-it note with a name and number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia knew that the district attorney had an open investigation. But the name on the Post-it was not Laura Millendorf, and the number was not the public hotline that the DA had set up for patients looking to report sexual assaults. It was Patricia Catapano, Columbia\u2019s deputy general counsel, and her direct line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
When Sandy Abramowicz told her doctor that Hadden had assaulted her, she was given the phone number for Patricia Catapano \u2014 who was then the deputy general counsel at Columbia \u2014 rather than getting contact information for the district attorney\u2019s office that was investigating Hadden. Credit: Courtesy of Sandy Abramowicz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Abramowicz tucked the Post-it inside her wallet. \u201cThe fact that she said, \u2018This is where they\u2019re referring former patients of Dr. Hadden\u2019 told me I\u2019m not the only one. And Columbia knows that I\u2019m not the only one. And then the thing that hits me is \u2014 if she represents Columbia and I\u2019m Sandy, whose interests is she representing here?\u201d Abramowicz carried the Post-it for years but never called the number. (Reached by email, Catapano wrote, \u201cI am retired from Columbia and have no interest in responding to this inquiry.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia also didn\u2019t alert prosecutors to the existence of other survivors who might have strengthened the criminal case. And it neglected to make a report to the Office of Professional Medical Conduct, the state medical board, as required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For almost two years after Hadden\u2019s indictment, Millendorf built her case, taking witness testimony and poring over thousands of medical records. But inside the DA\u2019s office, she felt there was an aversion to the case, which was complicated and challenging. Prosecutions of sexual violence were often chosen on the basis of how easy they would be to win. In 2015, Vance passed on prosecuting Harvey Weinstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 2016, Hadden\u2019s attorney, Kirshner, came to the DA\u2019s office at 1 Hogan Place to put the case to bed. Kirshner knew the department well. She had previously worked as a prosecutor there and was so close to Vance that she\u2019d asked him to preside at her wedding. Meeting with his deputy, Agnifilo, Kirshner agreed to a deal: Hadden would plead guilty to one felony and one misdemeanor, be added to a sex crimes registry, and surrender his medical license. He would serve no time behind bars or even perform community service. The agreement also stipulated that he could not be prosecuted in the future for any similar crimes then known to the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millendorf, who had not been at the meeting, was directed to tell Hadden\u2019s victims that the deal was a \u201cwin.\u201d Devastated by the weakness of the plea, she wrote up talking points for herself \u2014 a list she called \u201cReasons Why Plea Good\u201d \u2014 to keep herself on-message as she dialed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanyok was in the middle of holding a ballet audition when she got the call. \u201cI was numb. I was absolutely numb,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s all? That\u2019s all you get?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agnifilo thought at the time that the plea was a good one and that the survivors would be happy to be spared the agonies of a trial that might not have turned out the way they wanted. Today she feels differently. \u201cIt was just a wrong decision,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t even make excuses for it. And I don\u2019t even want to try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years after the plea, in February 2018, Kanyok was tired of fighting. After a grueling day of mediation with Columbia\u2019s lawyers, she agreed to a settlement in her civil suit. She received $475,000 and signed a confidentiality agreement. After the settlement, Kanyok went out for a halfhearted celebratory martini, went home and wept. The next morning, she broke down again, standing in her kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pulled herself together, walked her daughter to school and hugged her goodbye. Outside, alone and spent, she collapsed on the sidewalk of Fulton Street. \u201cI can make myself strong when I need to be strong. I can buck up to the best of things,\u201d Kanyok says. \u201cThis was a breakdown like I have never in my life experienced. This was worse than Hadden.\u201d When a friend tried to help her up, Kanyok \u2014 thinking of the agreement she\u2019d signed \u2014 could not say what was wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

When Evelyn Yang\u2019s husband,<\/strong> Andrew, announced his presidential campaign in 2017, she was so private she didn\u2019t have any active social media accounts. She remembers the internet trying to figure out her identity. \u201cThey would be posting these pictures of him with random women, captioned with my name, and I would laugh, like, \u2018Ooh, another decoy!\u2019\u201d One day in 2019, as the campaign was attracting national attention, Yang received a disconcerting piece of mail from Columbia: a subpoena for a deposition by her husband. She thought it must be a mistake. Legally, she was still a Jane Doe; Columbia wasn\u2019t supposed to know her identity yet. \u201cAnd then I thought, \u2018Oh. They\u2019re trying to send me a message \u2014 that they know who I am and that they know who my husband is,\u201d Yang says. \u201cIt felt like a threat. Like, \u2018We know who you are, and be careful, because we can out you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the campaign trail, Yang had been sharing candid stories about her son\u2019s autism. Voters responded by revealing their own trials. \u201cThere\u2019s one letter I got in particular about a woman who stood up to sexual harassment at her job,\u201d Yang says. \u201cI was really moved by her bravery, and I started to reflect on my own #MeToo story.\u201d She began to wrestle with whether to go public about Hadden in hopes that it might help others coping with similar trauma. (Looking back, it isn\u2019t lost on her that the move would also rob Columbia of the power to expose her. \u201cThey would never expect that I would do this,\u201d she says, \u201cand that was satisfying.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After months of agonizing, Yang contacted Dana Bash, a CNN anchor she\u2019d met on the campaign trail, and gave an interview that aired on the evening of Jan. 16, 2020. More than 2,000 miles away, in Provo, Utah, Dian Monson was propped up in bed, working. Her husband brought up some dinner and suggested they watch the news. He switched on CNN. After a few minutes of watching Yang\u2019s interview, he said that the doctor she was describing sounded a lot like the OB-GYN Monson had seen. She immediately searched the internet to learn more. \u201cI had seen him in 1993, and she was assaulted by him in 2012,\u201d she says. \u201cWhere was Columbia during all of that time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Yang aired her story, dozens more Hadden victims began to speak out, and the scale of his crimes caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice. Monson\u2019s letters helped to provide evidence of his crimes going back decades. A promising path to conviction lay in charging Hadden with enticement \u2014 persuading women to cross state lines to engage in illegal sexual activity. In September 2020, acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss announced his indictment at a press conference, calling him a \u201cpredator in a white coat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millendorf had quit the Manhattan DA\u2019s office by then. On the day of Hadden\u2019s arraignment, chatting by phone with a former colleague, she learned that the DA had opened a criminal investigation into Columbia\u2019s conduct. The official reason was the volume of new victims coming forward. But, of course, the politics of sexual abuse had undergone a sea change. Prosecuting it was more popular, and enabling it was considered more villainous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millendorf was infuriated to discover how much evidence Columbia had failed to turn over \u2014 or possibly even lost \u2014 during her investigation. The DA found that the university \u201cexpended little or no effort to preserve documents\u201d and put in place no record-retention holds until April 2020 \u2014 an elementary step when an organization is involved in litigation. The university did not give prosecutors emails from Brenda Cruz documenting the patient complaint in October 2008 and noting that it had been discussed with John Evanko, nor an email exchange in October 2013 about another incident. Columbia also did not turn over critical pieces of Hadden\u2019s personnel file, including his censure for inappropriate computer use and the letter from Harold Fox to Dian Monson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to investigators, Helen Cantwell, an attorney for Columbia, acknowledged that they should have produced certain documents in response to subpoenas. But she argued a technicality about the Fox-Monson letter and the computer-use note. Cantwell wrote, \u201cOn their face, neither document describes a complaint of patient abuse: one is an internal memo related to alleged inappropriate use of a computer which does not involve a patient in any matter and the other is a letter acknowledging receipt of a patient\u2019s concern, but the nature of the concern is not discernible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cantwell\u2019s letter also outlined steps the university has taken to improve patient safety, including updating its chaperone policy, adding signs in exam rooms, and establishing a hotline and database to track complaints. She also claimed, contrary to evidence, \u201cthe University\u2019s overwhelming record of cooperation throughout both investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one at Columbia was ever charged with a crime. \u201cI think there was the sense that we could not demonstrate that the conduct was intentionally purposeful,\u201d says Vance, who left office at the end of 2021. He offers an apology for his office\u2019s handling of the original investigation. \u201cI am very sorry for the way our office managed this case and how the survivors felt they were not listened to,\u201d Vance said. \u201cThat was unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2021, Columbia agreed to a $71.5 million settlement with 79 patients who had filed civil suits; a second settlement, for $165 million with 147 other victims, came the next October. The university did not accept responsibility or apologize for any dereliction of duty. More litigation could be coming: DiPietro says he plans to file cases on behalf of another 250 patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After abusive doctors were discovered at UCLA, USC, Michigan and Michigan State, those universities underwent reviews of systemic failures that allowed the misconduct to persist. Michigan State issued a formal statement of apology for its failures in the Larry Nassar case. Two university administrators faced criminal charges: The case against former president Lou Anna Simon was dismissed, but she resigned her position, and the dean of the school of osteopathic medicine was convicted of a misconduct charge. At Columbia, no administrator above Hadden at the time he was arrested has been fired or disciplined in any way that is known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2023, Laurie Kanyok sat in the witness box at the Southern District of New York courthouse to testify at Hadden\u2019s trial. A prosecutor asked her what navigating the justice system had been like. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time,\u201d Kanyok said through tears, raking her thick blond hair behind one ear. \u201cMy daughter is 10 years old. I called the police when she was 6 weeks<\/em> old.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of the two-week trial, witness after witness told stories of grooming and abuse as Hadden sat next to his state-appointed attorneys. One survivor, an Orthodox Jewish woman using the pseudonym Sara Stein, testified while wearing a headscarf, according to the tradition of married women. A prosecutor asked why she covered her hair that day, even though she was now divorced. \u201cIt was a part of my body that he had never seen, my hair,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I wanted to keep it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Jan. 24, the day of the verdict, a dozen women filed into two wooden benches and gripped each other\u2019s hands. The judge asked the foreperson for the jury\u2019s verdict on the first charge. \u201cGuilty,\u201d she said. The women audibly gasped. After the second \u201cguilty\u201d many began softly crying. Hadden was convicted on all four counts he faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was one more affront to endure. The judge announced that Hadden would be permitted to go home with his wife and son, both of whom have chronic medical conditions, pending another hearing. From the back of the courtroom, one of his former patients, a woman named Adina, rose to her feet: \u201cCould I just say one more thing? He\u2019s a sexual predator and we\u2019re allowing him to go home to two disabled people and care for them? That doesn\u2019t really make sense to me.\u201d Hadden\u2019s wife, Carol, who had attended every day of the trial, turned to face her. \u201cExcuse me,\u201d she said. \u201cI am his wife, and there is no problem.\u201d (Robert and Carol Hadden did not respond to requests for interviews.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week later, after hearing statements from survivors, the judge ordered Hadden detained. Eyes wide, he turned to face his wife as U.S. Marshals approached him with handcuffs. Three decades after his assaults began, he spent his first night behind bars on Feb. 1. On July 25, Hadden returned to court for sentencing and received the statutory maximum sentence of 20 years for each of the charges against him, to be served concurrently. Standing at the defense table, facing the judge, between sobs, he said, \u201cI\u2019m very sorry for all of the pain I have caused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of Hadden\u2019s former patients, including Yang, called legislators to push for the passage of the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that opened a temporary window for victims of abuse to file civil suits against their abusers, even when a statute of limitations has expired. The window will close on Nov. 23. Because Columbia refuses to notify them, an untold number of Hadden\u2019s patients remain unaware that he has been convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of them might have been Belkis Hull, a former Hadden patient, if she hadn\u2019t happened to see his mug shot while scrolling Instagram last winter. For more than a decade, she had dismissed her own experiences with Hadden, believing them to be in her head. Learning the truth felt validating, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s pathetic and it\u2019s so infuriating,\u201d she said. \u201cHow can you trust an institution anymore? An institution that is as prestigious as they were. The only reason I went there was because it was Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have information about Columbia or NewYork-Presbyterian that we should know? Visit propublica.org\/tips<\/a> to get in touch securely.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura Beil is a journalist in Texas who covers health care, and she is a recipient of the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting. She also writes and hosts the podcast \u201cExposed<\/a>\u201d about this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Mierjeski<\/a> contributed research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design and development by Anna Donlan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York Magazine blurred some of the photographs held by Hadden\u2019s former patients to emphasize the survivors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Co-published with New York Magazine by\u00a0Bianca Fortis, ProPublica, and\u00a0Laura Beil, photography by\u00a0Hannah Whitaker\u00a0for\u00a0New York Magazine, Sept. 12, 2023 For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep working. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14807,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14796\/revisions\/14807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}