For more than a decade, Riccardo Cruciani has built a reputation as a talented and respected physician who can relieve chronic pain when other doctors cannot.
But then a series of troubling allegations began to surface: Dozens of patients accused him of sexually abusing them during exams after offering them sometimes dangerously high doses of drugs to maintain control over them, prosecutors in the office said. the Manhattan district attorney’s office during a trial this month. When they resisted, he refused their prescriptions.
On Friday, jurors found Mr. Cruciani guilty of 12 counts of predatory sexual assault, sexual assault, rape and other crimes after about three days of deliberations. Mr. Cruciani’s month-long trial centered on the stories of six women he treated around 2012 at Beth Israel Medical Center, now known as Mount Sinai Beth Israel, in Union Square and at facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Friday that Cruciani, 68, violated the public’s trust in medical professionals by abusing his power over patients and intentionally capitalizing on their pain.
“Dr. Cruciani left behind six survivors who continue to suffer from debilitating illnesses and now years of trauma,” Mr. Bragg said. “While we can never undo his horrific actions, I hope this sentence serves as a measure of justice.”
Fred Sosinski, a lawyer for Mr. Cruciani, said in a statement on Friday that he believed the trial court made “a large number of legal errors” and that he planned to appeal the verdict.
“It appears that the combined weight of six accusers, rather than a fair consideration of each of their problematic accounts, led to victory,” Mr. Sosinski said.
Mr. Cruciani’s case is a stark example of how powerful medical professionals can take advantage of flawed oversight systems and avoid punishment for crimes.
Others have faced similar high-profile allegations in recent years, including Larry Nassar, a former USA women’s gymnastics team doctor, and Robert E. Anderson, a University of Michigan doctor who died in 2008 and has been accused by hundreds of football players and other students of sexual abuse.
Prosecutors and witnesses told jurors during the trial that Mr. Kruchani’s progress often began gradually. He hugged patients or ran his fingers through their hair. But over time, his behavior escalated: The doctor groped women, kissed them without permission and forced them to perform sexual acts or have intercourse, prosecutors said.
Reports of Mr. Cruciani’s misconduct date back more than 15 years. Sexual contact between doctor and patient is expressly prohibited by medical ethics. But administrators at several hospitals ignored reports of misconduct against Mr. Cruciani, who is from Pennsylvania, and allowed him to quietly take on new roles in other jobs or states, according to allegations in several lawsuits.
He was arrested in 2017 on charges including indecent assault and indecent exposure. But he avoided prison after reaching a plea deal that required him to give up his medical license and register as a low-level sex offender.
At his trial in Manhattan, prosecutors told jurors it was time to finally bring the doctor to justice. Over the years, prosecutors have said he followed a similar pattern in each abuse case: He made personal connections with his patients, questioning them about their upbringing, relationships and personal lives, and then began sexually assaulting them.
When the patients returned, he increased their doses or began prescribing new drugs and became more brazen in his behavior, prosecutors said.
Some of his patients develop drug addiction. One woman told The New York Times last year, for example, that as her drug addiction grew, Mr. Cruciani became stronger, groped her, masturbated in rooms with her and forced her to perform oral sex with him.
In his closing arguments, Mr. Sosinski, Mr. Kruchani’s defense lawyer, argued that his accusers were unreliable, the Associated Press reported. “You have to have every reason to doubt these allegations,” Mr. Sosinski told jurors.
Mr. Cruciani is due to be sentenced on September 14 and could spend life in prison. He also still faces a state case in New Jersey and federal charges in Manhattan for luring women to cross state lines for illegal sex, which could add to his time behind bars.
On Friday, several survivors praised the verdict and said it would help them continue their treatment.
“To finally be vindicated, to finally know that this person will never hurt another person, to finally know that maybe I’ll be able to sleep at night – it’s a great feeling of relief,” Hillary said Thulin.
At trial, Ms. Thulin testified that she sought Mr. Cruciani’s help about two decades ago for chronic pain that other doctors had difficulty diagnosing. But soon he started calling her home and telling her he was thinking about her. Once, she said, he grabbed her face and forcibly kissed her.
She said she was “overwhelmed” by the verdict and cried when she first got the news. The emotional and mental scars from her experiences will never go away, she said. But she hopes they will slowly fade from her mind.
“As much as I’ve been through trauma counseling and therapy,” she said, “I don’t think I can start healing until after I get this sentence. I can start trying to rebuild my life again.
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