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Weill Cornell settles federal probe of claims it allowed sexual abuse to go unchecked
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jul 27, 2026
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jul 27, 2026
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Weill Cornell Medicine has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to strengthen its sexual abuse prevention policies after a former urologist at the hospital was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing his patients.
The agreement resolves a years-long federal criminal investigation into Weill Cornell for failing to stop the doctor, Darius Paduch, from sexually abusing male patients as young as 13 over the course of at least a decade, from 2009 to 2019, according to an announcement Monday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Paduch was arrested on federal criminal charges in 2023 and convicted the following year of 11 felonies related to his abuse, including inducing a minor to travel to engage in sexual activity. He was also named in hundreds of civil lawsuits related to his abuse, often alongside Weill Cornell.
The criminal investigation into Weill Cornell found that the former chair of the Urology Department received complaints about Paduch’s conduct as far back as 2012 but failed to escalate them to hospital officials, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
“As the public has seen time and again, when medical institutions fail to implement and enforce robust safeguards to protect patients from sexual abuse, victims suffer unspeakable harms, and the public trust in the doctor-patient relationship is undermined,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.
As part of its efforts to prevent patient sexual abuse, Weill Cornell has also expanded its requirements around having chaperones present for sensitive exams and procedures, created a centralized process for reporting and investigating patient complaints about sexual misconduct, and developed new protocols for escalating complaints, hospital officials wrote in a message to faculty and staff Monday.
Paduch isn’t the only former doctor in the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell system who has been found guilty of widespread sexual abuse in recent years.
Robert Hadden, a former gynecologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, was sentenced in 2023 to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing hundreds of female patients during medical exams over the course of many years. Zhi Allen Cheng, a former gastroenterologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2025 for filming the sexual assault of women both at the hospital and in his apartment.
Weill Cornell has paid or agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle civil suits with Paduch’s victims to date, according to Monday’s announcement.
The hospital system is now committing an additional $30 million to create the Institute for Safe Patient Care and Patient Empowerment, a center that will help healthcare providers in New York and across the country adopt meaningful sexual abuse mitigation policies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said.
“This resolution is a significant step forward for us in addressing our former faculty member’s misconduct,” said Sarah Smith, a spokesperson for Weill Cornell. “Today, Weill Cornell Medicine is a safer organization.”
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Health and Science
Weill Cornell Medical Center
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Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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