$750 Million to Be Paid to Women Who Were Sexually Abused by Doctor

Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian have agreed to pay $750 million to hundreds of women who were sexually abused by a former doctor who preyed upon patients at prestigious New York hospitals for two decades.

The agreement brings to roughly $1 billion the amount paid for the wrongdoing of the doctor, Robert A. Hadden, coming after earlier settlements in which his former employers agreed to pay victims more than $200 million.

Mr. Hadden was convicted of sex crimes in 2023. Laurie Maldonado, a former patient and spokeswoman for his victims, said in a statement that this week’s civil settlement “is not about money — it’s about accountability.”

“Columbia University enabled sadistic abuse, and now, they’ve been forced to face the truth,” she said. “We hope this sends a clear message to every institution: Survivors will not be silenced, and those who protect abusers will be held responsible.”

NewYork-Presbyterian referred messages seeking comment to Columbia, which said in a statement that the settlement announced this week was “another step forward in our ongoing work and commitment to repair harm and support survivors” of Mr. Hadden’s abuse.

“We deeply regret the pain that his patients suffered,” the university said. “We commend the survivors for their bravery in coming forward.”

Anthony T. DiPietro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the settlement was approved on Monday by the New York Supreme Court, and involved 576 women who were abused by Mr. Hadden over roughly two decades.

“We started this litigation 13 years ago, back in 2012, which is before most people even heard of #MeToo,” Mr. DiPietro said in an interview. “It has been a long road.”

Prosecutors said that Mr. Hadden, a former gynecologist, had abused dozens of patients since the early 1990s, including children. But the number of victims compensated by his former employers has grown into the hundreds.

Mr. Hadden has not worked as a doctor since 2012, when he was first arrested after a patient called the police and said he had sexually touched her during a medical exam.

Before that, he had spent decades employed by two of New York’s elite hospitals. Prosecutors said he used the air of authority provided by his affiliations and white lab coat to convince women that his abusive acts were medically necessary.

The survivors of his abuse have included prominent New Yorkers, including Evelyn Yang, the wife of the former presidential candidate and New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, who said she had been assaulted by Mr. Hadden when she was seven months pregnant.

In 2016, after he had been accused of abuse by 19 patients, Mr. Hadden agreed to a plea deal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, then under Cyrus R. Vance Jr. The deal allowed Mr. Hadden to avoid prison time, but required him to give up his medical license and plead guilty to lesser charges.

He was convicted in 2023 of inducing four patients to cross state lines for examinations, during which he sexually assaulted them, and sentenced to 20 years in prison by a federal court.

After he was convicted that year, Columbia agreed to measures meant to address the harm caused by his abuse.

It said it would work with a third-party investigator to “thoroughly examine the circumstances and failures” that allowed Mr. Hadden to abuse patients for so long, and also established a $100 million settlement fund last year. That fund recently extended the deadline for survivors to submit a claim to May 15.

Mr. DiPietro said “it seems like this could be” the final settlement in the long-running case against Mr. Hadden, but that the nature of abuse investigations made that hard to know for certain.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more patients impacted who have not come forward yet,” he said.