Doctor Sexually Assaulted Patients At NYC Hospital: Report

NEW YORK, NY — A New Jersey neurologist is facing accusations that he sexually abused at least 17 women, including three who say he assaulted them at an East Village hospital, according to a new report by the Associated Press. According to the AP's review of documents and interviews with those three women, Dr. Ricardo Cruciani targeted women he was treated for rare diseases that cuased chronic pain, the AP reported Sunday.

Cruciani pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges in Philadelphia, admitting that he groped seven patients at a clinic there, the AP separately reported.

Hillary Tullin, a former TV news producer, told the AP that she first saw Cruciani at the East Village's Beth Israel Hospital in 2002. He treated her for three years without incident, but in 2005 he grabbed her and forced his tongue down her throat, Tullen told the AP.

"These hospitals created this perfect storm of opportunity for him to victimize so many patients," Tullin says in the story. "The system failed."

Tullin recalled a dozen other instances when Cruciani assaulted her by touching her breasts and genitals, coercing her into performing oral sex on him, and vice versa, the AP reported.

Two other unnamed women told the AP that Cruciani assaulted them during appointments at Beth Israel. Two of the women said the doctor also forced himself on them at Capital Health Medical Center in New Jersey and at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where Cruciani was chairman of the neurology department, the AP reported.

Beth Israel merged with Mt. Sinai Health System in 2013. Cruciani left the hospital before the merger. A Mt. Sinai spokesperson declined to comment to the AP.

Read the full AP report here.

(Lead image: Dr. Roberto Cruciani leaves a court in Philadelphia where he pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor charges stemming from his groping of patients at a clinic there. Photo by Matt Rourke/Associated Press)