UES Doctor Found Guilty Of Sexually Abusing Patients

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A urologist who worked on the Upper East Side was found guilty last week of sexually abusing male patients, including six underage boys.

Darius Paduch, 55, was found guilty by a jury last Wednesday in Manhattan federal court on all 13 counts he faced related to his sexual abuse of eight patients, according to the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors stated that Paduch, who previously worked at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Northwell Health, perpetrated the abuse between 2015 and 2019 while alone with his patients in the exam room.

"As a unanimous jury has just found, Darius A. Paduch leveraged his position of trust as a medical doctor for his own perverse gratification," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. "For years, patients seeking needed medical care, many of them children, left his office as victims."

The federal prosecutors initially unveiled the charges and indictment against Paduch in 2023. Initially involving two victims, both minors when the abuse began, the case has since expanded dramatically, with over 200 men stepping forward to accuse Paduch of molestation during their medical care.

"Paduch used his position as a urologist at prominent medical institutions in New York to make or attempt to make the victims believe that the sexual abuse he inflicted on them was medically necessary and appropriate, when, in fact, it was not," the indictment states.

Prosecutors say Paduch sexually abused boys and men from 2008 to April 2019, while he was employed by New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Paduch, a specialist in infertility and male reproductive health, was accused of instructing or engaging in masturbation with his victims. He also used sex toys on them and performed needless rectal exams while not wearing gloves, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Paduch directed his victims to see him repeatedly for follow-ups, generally after regular office hours. He would also text the boys from his personal cell phone after sessions, sending them sexual comments and jokes, according to federal authorities.

In 2019, Paduch left New York-Presbyterian and was hired at Northwell Health on Long Island, where he worked from August 2019 until the present.

New York U.S. Attorney Anthony DiPietro said last week New York-Presbyterian allowed Paduch to resign after patients complained about him. But the hospital never reported him to police, allowing Paduch to be hired at Northwell.

"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 where he worked looked the other way," Mallory Allen, a lawyer representing his victims, said in a statement.

Both New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Northwell received complaints regarding Paduch, but failed to protect their patients, attorneys at Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC (PCVA) said.

A 2012 complaint from an employee to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center described Paduch's sexual harassment and worrisome behavior. In 2017, a worried nurse linked two patients who had been assaulted by Paduch. In 2020, a former patient reported sexual abuse to Northwell Health, New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, and police, according to PCVA.

"Despite this report, Northwell Health continued to allow Paduch to see and treat patients, up until recently, without any supervision of his interactions with patients," PVCA said in a statement.

Paduch is now also being sued by some of his former patients in a slew of cases for alleged sexual abuse and for allegedly torturing patients with unnecessary medical procedures, according to the New York Post.

Following his arrest last year, Paduch’s medical license was suspended by the state Department of Health and is now expected to be permanently revoked, according to The New York Times.

"The jury verdict in the criminal case affirms that these heinous acts will not be overlooked, and the pending civil cases will ensure the institutions that repeatedly prioritized profits over their patients will face consequences for their indifference in ignoring years of complaints," Allen said.

With reporting from Carly Baldwin/Patch staff.