A New York medical school reached a compliance agreement with federal prosecutors this week, ending a criminal investigation into how a physician was able to abuse patients for roughly a decade. The deal adds a prevention mandate on top of more than a billion dollars the medical center already committed to survivors.
Reviewed by Survivor Justice Alliance · Updated 2026-10-21
Figures drawn from reporting on the federal compliance agreement announced this week.
The medical school announced this week that it reached a voluntary compliance agreement with federal prosecutors in New York, closing out a criminal investigation into whether the institution failed to prevent a physician from sexually abusing patients over nearly a decade. As part of the deal, the medical center will spend $30 million establishing a new institute focused on identifying and preventing patient sexual abuse.
That $30 million commitment comes on top of, not instead of, more than $1 billion the institution had already agreed to pay in civil settlements to patients affected by the abuse. The agreement also requires the medical school to maintain the prevention program going forward and to self-report any future federal crimes involving sexual misconduct, effectively placing the institution under continued federal scrutiny even after the criminal investigation closes.
The case centers on a longtime urologist at the medical center who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2024 for sexually abusing patients, including some as young as 13, from roughly 2009 to 2019. Prosecutors said the physician treated patients for conditions including genetic disorders and sexual dysfunction, and used those appointments to carry out abuse he claimed, falsely, was medically necessary.
Cases involving medical settings present a particular challenge for survivors and families: patients are taught to trust that uncomfortable or invasive procedures may be clinically justified, which can make abuse harder to recognize in the moment and harder to disclose afterward. Prosecutors ultimately determined the physician's conduct served no legitimate medical purpose.
Civil settlements compensate survivors, but they do not, by themselves, change how an institution operates going forward. A federal compliance agreement is a different tool: it resolves the government's criminal investigation while imposing ongoing obligations designed to prevent recurrence, including structured self-reporting and independent prevention infrastructure that persists after the investigation formally ends.
The federal prosecutor overseeing the case, the U.S. attorney, framed the deal as a signal to the broader healthcare industry that institutions are expected to protect patients and invest in detecting abuse early. Officials described the $30 million prevention institute as intended to make the medical school a model for identifying abuse risk within large medical systems, rather than simply closing the book on this case.
The medical school said in a statement that there is no place in its community, or in any medical institution, for the misconduct that occurred, and acknowledged that its prior policies were not sufficient to detect or respond to the abuse. That acknowledgment matters for survivors: institutional accountability in these cases often has to establish not just that abuse occurred, but that the systems meant to catch it failed.
For families navigating suspected abuse within a medical setting, this case illustrates that civil settlements and federal compliance mechanisms can operate on separate but overlapping tracks. The Alliance is not involved in this matter and does not provide legal advice; survivors of abuse within medical or institutional care settings are encouraged to consult a qualified attorney about their specific circumstances.
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Institutions facing abuse allegations can face both civil claims from survivors and separate federal action. Here is how the two typically differ.
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The physician responsible was separately convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2024. This agreement instead resolves a related federal investigation into the institution.
Yes. It is in addition to the more than $1 billion the medical school had already agreed to pay in civil settlements to affected patients.
The medical school must maintain its prevention program and self-report any future federal crimes involving sexual misconduct.
Patients are trained to trust that uncomfortable procedures may be medically necessary, which can delay recognition and disclosure of abuse.