A former gynecologist at prestigious New York City hospitals is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday following a federal conviction earlier this year for sexual abusing at least dozens of female patients, including minors, over the course of two decades.
Judge Richard M. Berman revealed his intention of a 20-year sentence during a Monday sentencing hearing for 64-year-old Robert Hadden that will continue in the Southern District of New York Tuesday. Hadden is expected to speak Tuesday after some legal issues are resolved, according to The Associated Press.
"This case is like no other in my experience," Berman said Monday, according to the New York Times, adding that Hadden’s actions were "lewd, serious, unchecked, out of control."
Berman is to impose the sentence after the hearing resumes Tuesday – unless the judge changes his mind.
Hadden, 64, has been in custody since his January federal conviction on four counts of enticing victims to cross state lines so that he could sexually abuse them during appointments.
The former doctor was stripped of his medical license, but avoided any prison time after cutting a deal with then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s office in 2016.
The state charges accused him of sexually abusing at least 19 patients. The Times noted that Evelyn Yang, the wife of the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, first revealed during a 2019 CNN interview that she allegedly was one of Hadden’s victims. Federal charges were announced in 2020.
During the federal trial, women testified in graphic detail that Hadden repeatedly forced them to submit to sexualized breast exams and touched their vaginas in ways that seemed sexual rather than for a medical purpose. They urged the judge to give him the maximum prison sentence possible.
At the nearly five-hour sentencing hearing Monday, the Times reported that Hadden blew a kiss to his wife, son and others who sat in the front row of the courtroom to support him.
DISGRACED NYC GYNECOLOGIST SHOULD FACE AT LEAST 25 YEARS FOR SERIAL SEXUAL ASSAULTS: PROSECUTORS
A 20-year sentence would be four times the roughly four- to five-year term that the judge concluded federal sentencing guidelines recommend.
But Berman said Hadden’s crimes merited a longer sentence. Berman said the case involved "outrageous, horrific, beyond extraordinary, depraved sexual abuse," noting the government has reported that at least 245 women, among thousands Hadden had treated, have claimed they were abused by the former gynecologist.
The judge’s announcement of his sentencing plans drew a complaint from defense attorney Deirdre von Dornum. She said it was overly harsh.
"Here you have somebody who has already lost everything, and you’re giving him effectively a life sentence," Dornum said, according to the AP.
Berman agreed to take the evening to think over the defense’s concerns.
The lawyer said her client was enduring harsh jail conditions at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, where inmates make threats and extort him to turn over his commissary money.
Nine victims spoke at the first stage of the sentencing hearing late last month. Several attended the proceeding on Monday but were not invited to speak again.
In 1987, Hadden started working at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, which later became New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The institutions have agreed to pay more than $236 million to settle civil claims by more than 200 former patients.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
