NYC doctor’s sex abuse victims beg judge not to clear his conviction because of his suicide
The six women who testified about being sexually and psychologically tortured by disgraced neurologist Ricardo Cruciani stood together in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday and implored a judge not to clear his name because of his suicide.
“Please. For all of us,” Terry Phoenix told Judge Michele Rodney. “Abatement will strip all his victims of restitution. The sense of justice I would feel from the guilty verdict will be entirely erased.”
Cruciani killed himself on Rikers Island on Aug. 15, two weeks after a jury found him guilty of predatory sexual assault, sexual abuse, and multiple counts of rape and attempted rape.
At what was supposed to be his sentencing Wednesday — at which he faced a prison term of up to 25 years — Judge Rodney instead heard arguments from the women he abused and his lawyers about how to close the book on his case.
Rodney said she would reserve issuing a decision on whether to vacate, dismiss, and seal his conviction.
The women who testified at the seven-week trial comprise a fraction of dozens of Cruciani’s former patients who say he abused them during medical visits. He treated all of them for years for rare and excruciatingly painful neurological disorders.
One victim who did not wish to be named, who was Cruciani’s patient for more than a decade, offered her condolences to his family. Her daughter read her statement as she quietly wept sitting in the courtroom gallery.
The older woman said she was still trying to reconcile the sexual abuse Cruciani subjected her to with the physical pain he relieved.
“When someone reported his behavior, why wasn’t action taken? Why was I raped and molested when, years ago, it could have been stopped by authorities?” she said. “Now, I’d rather suffer than go to a doctor. I can never trust a white coat again.”
The charges in the Manhattan state case date back to 2013 when Cruciani was at Beth Israel hospital near Union Square, now known as Mt. Sinai-Union Square.
Considered the top of his field in pain management, Cruciani during his 35-year career also worked in senior roles at Capital Institute for Neurosciences in Hopewell Township, N.J., and as chairman of the neurology department at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
He died with an open federal case against him and 22 pending lawsuits.
Hillary Tullin told the court she’d worked on her victim impact statement for years and was still coming to terms with the fact Cruciani would never hear it.
“What do you say to someone who’s dead?” said Tullin. “The best I can do is imagine he’s sitting here … and let him know the absolute devastation he’s caused me every single day.”
Cruciani’s lawyer Frederick Sosinsky told the judge dismissing the case against him might not be the “most fair” outcome, but it was necessary since his death means he can’t exercise his legal right to appeal.
Sabrina Bierer, from the Manhattan district attorney’s office of legislative affairs, said the judge had the power to break from tradition and asked her to use it.
Another victim, who did not wish to be named, said Cruciani raped and assaulted her while treating her for severe lifelong injuries from a car crash. She said it would be “cruel” to clear his name in death.
“Two weeks in jail is not enough. It’s not enough time for what he did to me and my five co-witnesses,” she said. “Cruciani got away with everything. I’m still broken.”
