Former gynecologist is behind bars for first time since patients accused him of sex abuse nearly 30 years ago
NEW YORK — Former Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden was remanded to jail Wednesday after a Manhattan federal court judge heard from nine women the doctor sexually abused during his 30-year career.
Judge Richard Berman also had letters from 43 additional victims, requesting Hadden be locked up before he starts his federal prison term for enticing four out-of-state women to his practice to molest them.
The judge refused to hear further arguments from Hadden’s legal team.
“I’m done, and you’re done,” he said.
Berman noted people were “mystified” by how Hadden evaded justice for so long.
“There is a feeling — that somehow or another — he skirts the process,” Berman said.
The first woman complained about Hadden’s abuse in 1994, prosecutors told the court, but Columbia University allegedly did nothing. It would be almost 20 years before he was arrested and nearly 30 before he was jailed.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance brought criminal charges against Hadden in 2014 for molesting and performing oral sex on patients. Laurie Kanyok reported Hadden to police for assaulting her days before she was due to give birth in 2012. She was one of several women who aided state prosecutors in their case that ended in 2016 with a slap on the wrist and no prison time.
After the feds pressed charges in 2020, the doctor was released on a $1 million bond.
Former patient Stephanie Fishman asked Berman to take away Hadden’s power and privilege, which she said he’d long abused.
“He is powerful because we’re all standing here. He’s not in jail. We’re begging for him to be there,” Fishman said Wednesday.
“Finally empower us, and get him off the streets,” Fishman said.
Hadden’s lawyer, Deirdre von Dornum asked Berman to let her client remain free until his April sentencing. She claimed he made great strides through going to therapy, church, and journaling. She said with his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet he can’t walk 100 feet away from his Englewood, New Jersey, home without alerting authorities.
In urging Berman to remand Hadden, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim asked the court to consider the “staggering” extent of his crimes.
Kim said Hadden got away with his perverse acts for so long by hiding under his white doctor’s coat and “the prestige of Columbia University.”
“He is now hiding behind more excuses,” the prosecutor said.
The number of his former patients who have come forward in some form or another now adds up to more than 350, according to Marissa Hoechstetter, one of the first women to speak out. Kim said prosecutors have spoken with 235 of them.
The criminal conviction came after a cascade of civil lawsuits against Hadden and the institutions where he carried out the abuse.
Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian have collectively paid out $236 million in settlements.
Hoechstetter told Berman she appealed to mayors, governors, city council members, state legislature leaders, and multiple government bodies in the decade since coming forward about Hadden abusing her. She played an instrumental role in lobbying lawmakers to pass the now-in-effect Adult Survivors Act.
Hoechstetter told the Daily News she never lost faith Hadden would one day be held to account.
“I didn’t want to be hopeful, but it was clear,” she said. “It was time.”
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