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The former New York City gynecologist accused of molesting more than two dozen patients, including the wife of ex-presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is facing federal charges, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Dr. Robert A. Hadden, who had avoided jail time and surrendered his medical license in a plea deal with state prosecutors earlier, now faces six counts of inducing others to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.
Hadden, 62, was arrested Wednesday morning in Englewood, N.J., which is located about 10 miles outside Manhattan.
Dr. Robert Hadden apears in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
NY GYNECOLOGIST ADMITS TO SEXUAL ABUSE OF 2 PREGNANT PATIENTS
Prosecutors said he "used his position as a medical doctor at a prominent university to make or to attempt to make his victims believe that the sexual abuse he inflicted on them was appropriate and medically necessary."
The indictment also claims Hadden would often make up excuses to get his clients alone.
"Hadden invited his victims to meet with him alone in his office, sent nurses and medical assistants out of the examination room for periods of time, and/or intentionally failed to·tell nurses and medical assistants when he was going into examination rooms so that he could be alone with his victims," the indictment alleges.
Once alone, Hadden "frequently brought up inappropriate and medically irrelevant sexual topics without prompting from his patients."
He often asked his victims for "detailed, inappropriate questions about their own sexual activities and sexual partners. Hadden also offered unsolicited advice to some of his victims regarding such inappropriate subjects as how to groom their pubic hair and how to masturbate or have orgasms."
The indictment claims Hadden's long list of victims included minors.
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Over the years, Hadden had faced a growing chorus of accusers, including Evelyn Yang, who told CNN that Hadden had assaulted her in 2012 when she was seven months pregnant.
Evelyn Yang called Hadden's deal with state prosecutors a "slap on the wrist" and said, "What happened to me should have never happened."
The sexual abuse allegations against Hadden date back as early as 1993.
A lawsuit brought by more than two dozen accusers says he groped and penetrated patients during vaginal examinations and “mole checks” that served “no medical purpose.”
Hadden also made sexually inappropriate remarks and surreptitiously perform oral sex on patients, the lawsuit says, “to satisfy his own prurient and deviant sexual desires.”
Hadden reached a plea agreement in 2016 with prosecutors in the office of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, who reopened an investigation into the doctor amid criticism over his handling of a case that included five counts of committing a criminal sexual act.
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Marissa Hoechstetter, another Hadden accuser, has said Vance’s office misled her about the statute of limitations in the case and was already negotiating the plea deal when she was still talking to prosecutors about testifying at a potential trial.
Hoechstetter said she initially felt relief sitting in court watching Hadden plead guilty, but realized after reading the agreement that prosecutors agreed not to charge him with any other crimes they were aware of — including the ones she said he committed against her.
“I just realized how badly I have been treated and taken advantage of,” Hoechstetter said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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