Four decades after patient abuse began, disgraced ex-Columbia gynecologist Robert Hadden to face sentencing

Almost four decades after he began systematically preying upon patients in fake medical exams — unrestrained by his employers or authorities — disgraced former Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden will face justice next week.

The “unassuming predator” who relentlessly molested, assaulted and raped female patients under the guise of gynecological care from the late 1980s to 2012 — his whole medical career — should receive a prison term that reflects the “immeasurable trauma” he wrought, prosecutors said in new court filings.

Ahead of Hadden’s sentencing, Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim said Hadden, 64, of Englewood, N.J., had leveraged his position of power for decades to target, exploit, deceive and sexually violate his patients.

“He was, by all accounts, an intelligent and well-educated person who came from a privileged background,” Kim said in the government’s sentencing submission filed late Tuesday, adding that Hadden should get at least 25 years.

“He appeared to his patients and to his community as a nice, mild-mannered doctor and family man, but he was actually an extremely dangerous, deceptive and sophisticated sex offender.”

At least 350 women have accused the once prestigious obstetrician-gynecologist of abuse in various civil and criminal matters — evidence at his recent trial covered up to 310 acts of abuse.

Jurors heard testimony from nine victims about how Hadden preyed on pregnant women, patients with severe medical concerns and women with little experience with OB/GYNs who didn’t realize they were being abused.

The depraved doctor raised eyebrows almost as soon as he started at the formerly-named Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in 1987. But it long looked like he would never be held to account.

Evidence provided by one of Hadden’s former nurses detailed her walking in on him and a patient in the late 1980s to see that his head was “tilted back, his eyes were closed and his face was red” during a fake vaginal exam.

Hadden would be promoted to chief resident at Columbia in 1990 and become an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital when it was formed a few years later, where he sexually assaulted pregnant women in labor and delivery. A staff nurse witnessed him sexually assault patients five to 24 times yearly.

In 1994, a patient reported Hadden to Columbia, but the complaint went nowhere.

It looked like he might finally be held responsible years later, in 2012, when he was arrested for licking a pregnant woman’s vagina during an exam. But Columbia didn’t fire him, and he assaulted another patient the following month. He was fired in 2013 after filing multiple requests for medical leave.

Under Cy Vance, Jr., the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Hadden with abusing six patients in 2014, when more women had come forward in lawsuits.

But he dodged jail time in a maligned 2016 plea deal requiring him to admit to harming just two women in exchange for his medical license and registering as a level-one sex offender — the lowest rating. In addition, prosecutors promised not to charge Hadden for anything they learned in their investigation.

With no sign that Hadden would be meaningfully held responsible, many of his victims proceeded to pursue justice in the civil courts. They played an instrumental role in lobbying New York lawmakers to pass the Adult Survivors Act, historic legislation that opened a one-year window to bring sexual assault claims if the statute of limitations had expired.

Hadden’s accusers also went after the elite institutions they said enabled him. Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian have shelled out hundreds of millions to women abused by Hadden under their employ, including a $165 million settlement last October with 147 victims, following another in 2021 with 79 women.

The walls wouldn’t close in on Hadden until September 2020, when federal prosecutors brought the current case accusing him of enticing patients from out of state to abuse. One was a teenage girl who he had delivered at birth.

A jury took less than three hours to convict him when he went on trial in January, with Judge Richard Berman heeding the calls of his victims and revoking his $1 million bail. To accommodate all who wish to speak at sentencing, Berman will spread the proceeding across two days, on June 28 and July 24.

In his June 13 sentencing submission, Hadden asked the judge to give him up to three years. Federal public defender Deirdre von Dornum said he had been “struggling to stay afloat” at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting sentencing, where he’s been terrorized by staff and inmates who call him a “child molestor” and “rapist.” On his first day, his face and the word “predator” was displayed on every TV in his unit.

“He goes through each day in fear, trying to stay in his cell as much as possible, coming out only for showers and family phone calls. He jumps at every noise and his hands tremble almost constantly. His skin is covered with rashes. He has already lost 35 pounds,” von Dornum wrote.

Hadden’s lawyers had argued that he’s already paid for his crimes in the Manhattan DA’s case when the feds brought charges, wrongly punishing him “over and over again.”

Prosecutor Kim told Judge Berman it was “extremely troubling” that Hadden hadn’t directly acknowledged his crimes in therapy or in his sentencing submission. She said a stiff sentence is critical to ensuring the community’s safety — and justice for his victims, who have long waited for it.

“The Court’s sentence will reflect how seriously crimes of violence against women are taken in this District, particularly given that sex crimes in this country remain under-reported and under-prosecuted,” Kim wrote.

“And it will send a message to the victims in this case that their lives and bodies matter.”