A New York City doctor has been found guilty of sexually abusing eight patients including minors, under the guise of medical treatment. According to the New York Post, Darius Paduch was a urologist, who specialized in infertility and male reproductive health. The outlet reported that he carried out the abuse from 2015 through 2019 when he was alone with his patients in the exam room.
The indictment said he used to allegedly instruct his victims to masturbate themselves. He also used sex toys on them and carried out unnecessary rectal exams without wearing gloves.
According to the Manhattan US Attorney's Office, the 55-year-old doctor was found guilty by a jury Wednesday in a federal court on all 13 counts he faced related to his sexual abuse of eight patients.
In a press release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, ''As a unanimous jury has just found, Darius A. Paduch leveraged his position of trust as a medical doctor for his perverse gratification. For years, patients seeking needed medical care, many of them children, left his office as victims. I commend the career prosecutors of this Office for bringing this important case to a just conclusion.''
Defending himself, the doctor had claimed some of his methods of touching patients were medically necessary. However, the indictment said they were intended for his sexual gratification.
After the verdict, Mallory Allen, a lawyer representing his victims said, ''For nearly twenty years, patients who trusted him for their medical care and treatment were instead brutalized by his degrading, sexually violating, and medically unfounded acts while the hospitals were he worked looked the other way.
''The jury verdict in the criminal case affirms that these heinous acts will not be overlooked, and the pending civil cases will ensure that the institutions who repeatedly prioritized profits over their patients will face consequences for their indifference in ignoring years of complaints,'' Mr Allen added.
The disgraced doctor who's been behind bars since his April 2023 arrest faces up to 60 years imprisonment at his sentencing. However, his attorney Michael Baldassare said his client would seek to appeal.
''Dr. Darius Paduch has maintained his innocence since the start of this case. He maintains it to this day and we will continue to fight for him. We will be filing post-trial motions and an appeal and will seek all available relief,'' the attorney stated.
