Flushing Doctor Jailed For Killing Woman In Botched Abortion

FLUSHING, QUEENS -- A Queens doctor who killed a patient in a botched abortion dodged a lengthy prison sentence by accepting a last-minute plea deal moments before jurors reached a verdict in his monthlong trial.

Robert Rho, 55, of Great Neck, was ordered to just one-and-a-third to four years in prison on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide for the 2016 death of 30-year-old Jaime Lee Morales. The six-months-pregnant Bronx woman bled to death the night Rho operated on her in his Flushing clinic, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

“This was a very sad case," Brown said. "A 30-year-old woman, who had recently graduated from college and had her whole life ahead of her, died as the result of this botched procedure."

Rho was originally on trial for manslaughter, and could have gotten 15 years in prison. After deliberating for two full days last month, the jury was moments away from announcing its verdict when his lawyer cut a plea deal with prosecutors.

"The doctor has accepted responsibility and admitted his failure to provide adequate care following surgery," Brown said.

The veteran physician performed an abortion on Morales at his now-shuttered practice in Liberty Women's Health in the Charles Schwab building at 37-01 Main St on July 9, 2016. Prosecutors said he pierced her uterine wall, tore her cervix and cut across her uterine artery - none of which are supposed to happen during a surgical abortion.

Morales then required a second emergency surgery after she began bleeding "profusely" in Rho's waiting room. He sent her home immediately afterwards, despite her collapsing in his clinic, and she fell unconscious on the drive home, prosecutors said.

She was rushed to a Bronx hospital, where she was treated for vaginal bleeding and given six units of blood. She died that night.

Lead photo via Google Maps.