New York City doctor pleads guilty to sexually abusing patients in hospital
Zhi Alan Cheng, a gastroenterologist, acknowledged filming assaults in his apartment and the hospital where he had previously worked, New York-Presbyterian Queens, state prosecutors said in a statement on Monday after his guilty plea.
He is expected to receive a 24-year prison sentence from Queens supreme court justice Ushir Pandit Durant at a hearing tentatively set for 28 August.
'The level of violence and perversion displayed by Zhi Alan Cheng in sexually abusing multiple victims is compounded by the fact that he took an oath to do no harm as a medical professional,' said a statement attributed to local district attorney Melinda Katz.
The guilty plea resulted from one of several prosecutions of prominent physicians in New York and other parts of the US on allegations they violated patients in medical settings.
As prosecutors put it, authorities arrested Cheng on 27 December 2022 on allegations that he had raped a woman whom he knew at his apartment. That woman discovered videos depicting her and other women being assaulted by Cheng, and an attorney of the survivor approached Queens prosecutors with that information.
An ensuing investigation led to the seizure of numerous devices containing videos of Cheng sexually abusing unconscious women who were his patients or over at his apartment. Investigators also seized recreational drugs – fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, LSD and MDMA – as well as powerful medical sedatives, including propofol and sevoflurane.
In August 2023, prosecutors obtained a 50-count criminal indictment charging Cheng, who had been held without bail since his arrest.
He faced additional charges in an indictment handed up against him in March 2024 after another hospital-related victim came forward.
Ultimately, Cheng, 35, pleaded guilty to four counts of rape and three counts of sexual abuse, all in the first degree. He also entered what is known as an Alford plea to one count of sexual abuse, which means he maintained his innocence on that charge but conceded overwhelming evidence against him would probably get him convicted at a trial.
Four of the survivors involved in the case against Cheng were described as hospital victims, prosecutors said. The rest, prosecutors said, were described as apartment victims.
'I thank the brave victim who initially came forward and exposed this abuse,' Katz remarked in her statement. 'We hope the guilty plea allows all the victims to continue to heal.'
Authorities have said that the hospital which had employed Cheng cooperated in the case against the disgraced doctor.
'As caregivers, we are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of our patients. It is a sacred trust. The crimes committed by this individual are heinous, despicable, and a fundamental betrayal of our mission and the patients' trust. We are deeply sorry for all that the victims and their families have endured,' New York-Presbyterian hospital spokesperson Angela Karafazli said in a statement.
News of the charges against Cheng came about two weeks after former Manhattan obstetrician-gynecologist Robert Hadden had been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for sexually abusing numerous patients.
Back then, Cheng's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he recognized 'how serious the charges' against his client were.
Lichtman on Monday thanked prosecutors for his client's plea agreement and said: 'The charges to which Mr Cheng has pleaded guilty today are extraordinarily serious.'
The Associated Press contributed reporting
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