NEW YORK, US - A former New York gynecologist accused of assaulting dozens of women, including the wife of a onetime US presidential candidate, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for sexual abuse.
Robert Hadden, 64, was convicted in January of enticing patients to travel across state lines for examinations in Manhattan where he would sexually assault them.
Federal prosecutors called Hadden, who has not worked as a doctor since 2012, "a predator in a white coat."
Judge Richard Berman handed down the sentence, saying the case was "like no other in my experience in terms of horrendous, beyond extraordinary, depraved sexual assault," ABC News reported.
After serving his sentence, Hadden will be placed on supervised release for the rest of his life, a spokesperson for the prosecution confirmed to AFP.
Hadden, of New Jersey, has been accused of abusing scores of women between the early 1990s and 2012.
Among them was Evelyn Yang, wife of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang who ran for president in 2020 as a Democratic outsider.
In January that year, Evelyn Yang told CNN she was assaulted by Hadden in 2012 while seven months pregnant with her first child, and had at first not even told her husband.
Hadden had pleaded guilty in 2016 to two state charges of forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse under a plea deal that saw him avoid jail.
Under the agreement, he lost his medical license and was registered as the lowest-level sex offender.
Last year, the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) announced it had reached a $165-million settlement with 147 of Hadden's patients.
That settlement came after Columbia announced a $71.5-million deal reached in 2021 between its hospitals and 79 of Hadden's patients who had been represented by a different lawyer.
Columbia has said that over the past decade, CUIMC's obstetrics and gynecology department has revised existing policies and expanded resources to improve patient safety. - AFP