A New York doctor was criminally charged and indicted in April after allegedly fondling underage patients. While the doctor denies the allegations, the I-Team has learned at least one former patient complained to health regulators five years before the physician was arrested. NBC New York’s Chris Glorioso reports.
Five years before Dr. Darius Paduch was criminally charged with sexually abusing underage boys, one of the urologist’s former patients notified the New York State Health Department about alleged misconduct that closely mirrors the kind of abuse now detailed in a federal indictment against the physician.
According to a formal complaint filed in 2018 with the state’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct, a patient awaiting surgery claimed Paduch engaged in "a number of abusive and inappropriate actions" in the exam room.
The alleged sexual misconduct, which reportedly took place in 2006 and 2007, included claims that the doctor required the patient to masturbate in front of him, that the doctor photographed the patient’s erect penis, that he showed the patient photos of other men’s penises, and inquired about the patient’s taste in pornography.
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Health regulators would not say why that formal complaint failed to prompt disciplinary action in the five years before Paduch was arrested or if an investigation failed to substantiate the complaint.
Monica Pomeroy, a DOH spokesperson, said state health regulators are required to review every complaint they receive, but they are not allowed to discuss complaints that do not lead to formal discipline.
“The New York State Department of Health takes instances of potential medical misconduct seriously and acts appropriately to protect the health and safety of patients,” Pomeroy wrote to the I-Team. “Public Health Law prohibits the Department from discussing or providing any details or records pertaining to an investigation, complaint, or prosecution, beyond what is published on the public website.”
According to the DOH public website, Dr. Paduch’s only formal discipline came after he was arrested. His license to practice medicine in New York is now suspended.
Michael Baldassare, an attorney representing Paduch in the criminal case, said his client should be presumed innocent and stressed his decades of experience in treating patients with fertility and other conditions affecting the male reproductive system.
"Not only has Dr. Paduch been a well-respected physician for 20 years, he has authored or co-authored over 80 scholarly publications in his field and served our country honorably as a Captain in the Army Reserve Medical Corps,” Baldassare said, “we will defend this case to greatest extent of the law."
Lawyers for the former patient who filed that DOH complaint in 2018, say he is one of at least 37 plaintiffs now suing Dr. Paduch under New York state’s Adult Survivor’s Act, which gave victims of sex crimes a one year look-back period to file civil suits - even if the statute of limitations has passed. The former patients suing Paduch are also suing New York Presbyterian Hospital and Northwell Health, the two medical networks that employed the accused pedophile.
“I think dozens more, if not hundreds more, are likely to come forward,” said Mallory Allen, an attorney who now represents at least 35 former patients suing Dr. Paduch. “Most people who are abused don’t come forward, though, so I think what that is likely to tell us is that thousands of people were likely abused.”
The I-Team reached out to the American Board of Urology, to ask whether it is ever appropriate for a urologist to ask a patient to masturbate in front of him or her or for a doctor to take photos of a patient’s erect penis. We also asked if there are best practices for genital examinations of patients under the age of 18. The Board did not immediately respond to the I-Team’s inquiry.
Allen says some of her clients will testify Dr. Paduch became aroused in the exam room, pressing himself up against patients during physical exams. And she says patients aren’t the only ones who have complained about Paduch’s behavior.
Allen’s law firm has obtained a 2012 letter addressed to a human resources official at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. In it, a urology nurse complained about the physician’s alleged misconduct – including claims that Paduch routinely used sexually explicit language and even exposed his bare buttocks to a fellow employee. It is not clear if that letter ever prompted an investigation or internal hospital discipline.
Steve Singer, a spokesperson for Weill Cornell Medicine, said the hospital could not address specific allegations because of the ongoing litigation, but stressed the institution is cooperating fully with law enforcement and hiring an outside law firm to conduct an internal investigation.
“Weill Cornell medicine values the care and safety of our patients above all else and we are taking these matters very seriously,” Singer wrote. “The acts described are disturbing and appalling and we feel deeply for those involved.”
Paduch spent more than a decade working at New York Presbyterian, but at some point around 2019, he ended his practice there and begin treating patients at Northwell Health.
Jason Molinet, a spokesperson for Northwell Health, declined to answer questions about Dr. Paduch's time there, except to say he no longer works there.
"Northwell Health strives to provide the highest level of care to its patients, patients’ families and communities and we take these allegations very seriously," Molinet said. "Dr. Paduch is no longer working at Northwell. We will cooperate with the appropriate authorities as they conduct their investigation."
But Tucker Coburn, one of the former patients now suing Paduch, says it is clear to him that Northwell Health failed act decisively in light of his own complaint. Back in 2020, Coburn says he met with Northwell officials and described Paduch's alleged pattern of abuse at New York Presbyterian, where the urologist treated Coburn for a genetic disorder affecting his hormones.
Coburn says the Northwell human resources team appeared to take his warnings seriously, but in the months following, nothing seemed to happen. In the two years that followed Coburn’s complaint, the criminal indictment says Paduch went on to continue his pattern of sexual abuse at Northwell.
“After my complaint to Northwell – and then nothing having happened from that and people subsequently having been abused? To me it’s infuriating,” Coburn said.
