NEW YORK — Lawyers for convicted Columbia University gynecologist Robert Hadden on Thursday asked a judge not to throw the book at him when he’s sentenced later this month.
Hadden, who was found guilty by a jury in January of enticing patients from out of state to abuse in medical settings, says he has paid for his crimes and should serve no more than three years.
His federal public defender Deirdre von Dornum said the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office had disregarded his role as the primary caretaker of his disabled wife and son in asking the court to impose an above-guidelines sentence of a “staggering” 25 years.
“In its zeal to persuade this Court to give Mr. Hadden the equivalent of a life sentence, no matter what the facts or law, the government takes extreme positions better suited to our current political discourse than a brief from a litigant with special responsibilities in our system of justice,” von Dornum wrote.
“The government’s entire brief reads like a one-sided, cable news opinion piece.”
Von Dornum said prosecutors had also ignored the findings of a forensic psychiatrist, who determined that Hadden has a voyeuristic disorder and is no longer a danger to the community “absent the unique opportunities he once had by virtue of his work.”
The once-prestigious obstetrician-gynecologist has been accused by hundreds of his former patients of sexually assaulting, raping and molesting them in fake medical exams in various criminal and civil matters.
The jury that took less than three hours to convict him on charges alleging he enticed four women from out of state to abuse them heard from nine victims and his former colleagues. Trial evidence showed he preyed on pregnant women, women with severe medical concerns and patients with little to no experience with OB/GYNs.
First arrested in 2012 on accusations he licked a patient’s vagina during a pregnancy exam, Hadden has already been convicted for abusing patients on state charges. That ended in a widely condemned no-jail plea deal that infuriated his victims.
In the deal offered by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in 2016, Hadden pleaded guilty to harming two women in exchange for surrendering his medical license and registering as a low-level sex offender.
Von Dornum said Hadden had paid for his crimes, describing it as “extraordinarily disturbing” that the government wanted him put away for 17 years more than federal sentencing guidelines recommend. She said the federal charges were not an opportunity for the government to retry the case.
“The government’s position is on one level understandable. The pain Mr. Hadden has caused is immeasurable — emotional harm always is — and there is a real need for punishment to recognize the harm caused,” the lawyer wrote.
“It is for that reason that we do not ask for leniency for this 64-year-old first-time offender who has not committed a crime in over a decade and has extraordinarily compelling family circumstances, but instead ask for a Guidelines sentence.”
The institutions where Hadden carried out his abuse have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to patients victimized by the disgraced doc. Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian reached a $165 million settlement last October with 147 victims, following another in 2021 with 79 women.
Manhattan U.S. attorney spokesman Nick Biase declined to comment.
Hadden is expected to be sentenced on July 24.
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