Disgraced NYC ob-gyn Robert Hadden to get 20 years in prison for sex-trafficking patients
Disgraced Manhattan gynecologist Robert Hadden is set to be sentenced to 20 years behind bars on a sex-trafficking conviction for luring vulnerable patients so he could sexually abuse them, a federal judge said Monday.
Manhattan federal Judge Richard Berman said he planned to hand down the punishment Tuesday after hearing emotional statements from 11 of Hadden’s victims last month — who described the toll the abuse had on their lives and asked that the depraved doctor be locked up for as long as possible.
“Robert Hadden is a sexual predator disguised in a white coat,” said one woman, who used the pseudonym Emily Anderson.
Hadden, 64, of Englewood, New Jersey, was found guilty by a jury in January of all four counts of enticing women to travel across state lines so he could abuse them while he worked at prestigious city hospitals, including ones associated with Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian.
He had faced up to 80 years in prison at his sentencing.
Prosecutors sought at least 25 years imprisonment, while lawyers for the convicted pervert — who has been jailed for the last several months — asked that he be given just a 3-year prison term.
Jurors heard from nine of Hadden’s former patients during the three-week trial in January, and were presented with evidence showing that Hadden committed up to 310 acts of sexual abuse and assault on dozens of people in his care.
Hadden’s abuse went unfettered for decades as the then-doctor perfected his twisted scheme — beginning when he started practicing in 1987 and continuing through 2012.
The hospitals he worked at were sued by over 200 former patients and have agreed to pay $236 million to settle those cases.
Hadden in 2016 pleaded guilty in a state criminal case to abusing six patients and was stripped of his medical license and forced to register as a sex offender. But he avoided jail time in that case.
One victim who spoke at the June 28 hearing, Laurie Kanyok, said she was abused by the doctor 11 years ago during an appointment. She called the police, which triggered the state probe against him that resulted in the cushy no-jail plea deal.
Kanyok told the judge she has an 11-year-old daughter who will soon need her own gynecological care and “this petrifies me.”
She noted after the hearing last month that Hadden smiled and waived at people in the courtroom showing “no remorse … I think he is a true sociopath.”
At trial, Hadden’s lawyers didn’t try to dispute that he molested patients but rather claimed since he’d already pleaded guilty in state court, he shouldn’t be convicted in the federal case.
Another central part of Hadden’s defense was the claim that he didn’t knowingly entice his victims across state lines for abuse — a key element of a sex-trafficking charge.
Prior to his conviction, Hadden had been free on $1 million bail since his 2020 arrest.
“For years, he cruelly lured women who sought professional medical care to his offices in order to gratify himself,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement at the time of the conviction.
“Hadden’s victims trusted him as a physician, only to instead become victims of his heinous predilection,” Williams said. “We thank and commend the brave women who came forward to tell their stories, many of whom testified at trial, to end his years-long cycle of abuse.”
With Post wires
