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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Here in New York, an historic settlement is being hailed as a landmark victory for hundreds of women who survived abuse by the former Columbia University gynecologist Dr. Robert Hadden for over 20 years, while Columbia ignored his patients who spoke out, undermined prosecutors, shielded the sexual predator. On Monday, a Manhattan judge approved the settlement, in which Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian agreed to pay $750 million after the former doctor abused the women under the guise of medical examinations. Legal payouts now top more than $1 billion, following earlier settlements. Altogether, it’s the largest in U.S. history with a medical institution. Dr. Hadden was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023 for molesting his patients.
Columbia University said in a statement to the Associated Press Tuesday the settlement was, quote, “another step forward in our ongoing work and commitment to repair harm and support survivors,” and said it’s, quote, “implementing a multi-pronged plan, including an external investigation, a survivors’ settlement fund, and a series of new and updated patient safety policies and programs to address the abuses of Robert Hadden.”
For more, we’re joined by two women who sued after surviving Hadden’s abuse. Laurie Maldonado is with us. She was an OB-GYN patient of Hadden’s between 2003 and 2012. Eva Santos Veloz was just 18 years old when Hadden was assisting in an emergency delivery and, she says, sexually abused her. We’re also joined by their attorney, Anthony DiPietro, who’s representing hundreds of sexual abuse claims by former patients of Robert Hadden.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Laurie, let’s begin with you. It has been years now, but this is an enormous accomplishment, not just the money settlement, but the laws you all have gotten passed, for example, in New York state alone, to allow people who had been abused decades ago to be able to come forward and sue Dr. Hadden, who’s in prison, but also take on a medical institution. If you could quickly, and if you feel comfortable saying what happened to you — and, Eva, I want to ask you the same — and then, what it took, even if it took years because of whatever your reasons for coming forward, and your response to the settlement?
LAURIE MALDONADO: Yeah. Thank you so much, Amy. I know Democracy Now! has covered our story numerous times. I think we’ve been on here four times. So, thank you. It means so much.
The settlement is huge. It was just a huge win for all of survivors, including Hadden survivors, but all of survivors. And I also have to say that it took a really long road to get there. Anthony DiPietro has been at that fight for more than 10 years. A lot of us have just joined or have been in it for years. But there’s been so much coming forward. And it really has been on the voice of survivors and the bravery of survivors sharing their stories, their vulnerabilities. And it’s been survivors who have notified other survivors to come forward.
You know, Hadden is the biggest sexual predator in the history of the United States. Eva and I are a few of thousands of women that he sexually abused. I was sexually assaulted two days before the birth of my son. But there are so many women that were —
AMY GOODMAN: You went to him because you were about to give birth.
LAURIE MALDONADO: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And you thought — he said to come to his office, rather than the hospital, for a checkup.
LAURIE MALDONADO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the pain that he caused, the physical pain, yeah, it was just egregious.
AMY GOODMAN: How long did it take you, and when did you realize that this was — you were not alone?
LAURIE MALDONADO: Oh gosh. I first found out when a woman came forward. Laurie Kanyok came forward, called 911. There was in the daily — in the newspaper on the subway, it was like, “Gyno Is a Sicko.” So, that was my first —
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re looking across the subway at the guy across from you, and they have a newspaper and a picture of your doctor, “Gyno Is a Sicko.” And you go, “That’s Dr. Hadden.”
LAURIE MALDONADO: That’s my doctor. And that’s my doctor of, you know, almost 10 years. Like, that’s my doctor of — you know, that I — my first OB-GYN. Yeah. And so, it was women kind of notifying other women. Other people have been notified by Instagram, on subway ads. And, you know, I first was following it, and I first, of course, came forward to — I was moved to another doctor and just asked, “Was this — you know, was this a medical procedure?” No. And, you know, at that point, Columbia, they kind of do their best to sort of silence you. So it took me a while. I think it took me a while to overcome the shame and the fear.
And then, once I did and I came forward to Anthony and was a part of this legal lawsuit, I really found my voice. And I noticed that, yeah, the more that I spoke, the more women came forward. And that happened again after, you know — and we’re really — it’s women’s work. It’s survivors’ work. But there’s legal work. We’ve had investigative journalists. There are so many things that have happened.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Laurie, when you mentioned Columbia did what they could to silence you, could you talk about that, the fact that the university for so long had to be aware of what was going on but did nothing about it?
AMY GOODMAN: Juan just asked you, Laurie — you said Columbia silenced you but did nothing about it. Explain what took place. I remember seeing you when Minouche Shafik, the former president of Columbia, was being inaugurated, and the survivors were there, all these medical doctors at Columbia, residents, students in their white coats protesting, demanding that Columbia alert all of the patients of Hadden about what he’s being charged with, if they wanted to come forward.
LAURIE MALDONADO: Oh my goodness. There were — Columbia University, they never notified patients, up until a few days before survivors had a chance to take legal action. So, there was more than 6,000 patients. And yeah, they finally notified, after protest. And that was really — that was really important.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to ask Eva Santos: If you could talk about your situation? Specifically, you were undocumented at the time you first dealt with Dr. Hadden or were a patient of his, and how that affected your ability to speak out?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Sure. So, I mean, being undocumented back then, in 2008, was the main reason why I couldn’t speak up. I felt afraid of being a Latina woman in a country that already doesn’t stand up for us, and I just felt really afraid and ashamed if I was going to be — if they were going to believe me. So I didn’t say anything. I bottled it up for years, until I was finally able to see powerful women like Laurie, like Marissa, come forward. That gave me the courage to know that I was going to be protected. Also, Anthony DiPietro gave me the power and courage to finally know that what I went through was real, and it wasn’t something that was just being silent and hidden by Columbia.
AMY GOODMAN: You were giving birth to your first son at the age of 18, and you were in an emergency delivery, and this guy walks in?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: 2008.
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Yeah, I was 18 years old. This was my first birth. During my labor, he sexually assaulted me multiple times, not just once. I was there for many hours. And he used his power in order to make me feel like what he was doing was right.
AMY GOODMAN: You were undocumented, afraid to come forward for years?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Correct, yeah. I was really afraid to come forward. But I’m no longer afraid. They will not silence me. It’s something that Columbia has the power of doing — believe that they have the power of doing, but they don’t. And I will continue to use my voice to hold them accountable, regardless of my status.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask Anthony DiPietro to talk about the evolution of this case, how you got involved, and the numbers of people that have come forward.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, Anthony cannot hear Juan, but Juan asked: How many people were involved? How many women survivors? How did you get involved in this case?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Yeah. So, to date, our firm has represented 808 women who have come forward to report on being sexually exploited and abused by Robert Hadden at Columbia University. The really tragic part of this is that the university knew all the way back into the ’90s about what he was doing and how he was mistreating patients, but did nothing but lie, cover it up and expose more unsuspecting patients to a known serial predator.
AMY GOODMAN: But explain. I mean, actually, you have achieved, altogether with your settlements, over a billion dollars. Columbia University — and you can explain the different medical institutions where he worked, Columbia Presbyterian, representing people like Evelyn Yang, who is the wife of the presidential candidate — everyone learning from everyone else, women who came forward. Explain how that — over a billion dollars, Columbia is paying out. What did they not do? When did they know that he was a predator?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Yeah, so, Columbia knew all the way back into 1995, when a patient wrote a letter to their chairman, and who wrote back. He acknowledged receipt of the letter. She wrote to the chairman, risk management and the hospital itself, and they did nothing except cover this up.
And the reason why these cases are so important is, if you look at what happened at Columbia with Hadden, at Weill Cornell with Darius Paduch, at Michigan with Larry Nassar, USC with George Tyndall, UCLA with James Heaps, the one thing these institutions have in common is that — the one thing these cases have in common is that the institutions always know the abuse is happening. So, it’s important that we make them — we hold them accountable, we hit them where it hurts, because the only thing they really care about — and they’ve shown this again and again — is their money and their reputation. And so, it’s really important that they understand that we’re here, we’re watching them, and we’re going to hold them accountable if they don’t take proper action.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain something? This is not only about Columbia. It’s also about the Manhattan DA, who was Cyrus Vance at the time. It is astounding, the deal they made with him. And explain that.
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: It’s outrageous. So, in 2016, over 20 women had come forward to report the abuse to the District Attorney’s Office in New York City. That included a fellow employee of Robert Hadden’s, an employee of Columbia University. They indicted him for six women. The District Attorney’s Office then allowed Hadden to pick any two of the six women that he wanted, plead guilty to them. One of them, he made oral contact with; another one of them, he forcibly assaulted. And they gave him what more closely resembles an early paid retirement instead of a sentence for a sexual felon — no jail, no fine, no community service. They didn’t even take his license; they allowed him to surrender his medical license.
AMY GOODMAN: And no jail at that time.
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: What caused him to go to jail?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Not a thing. I’m convinced it is the collective voices of all these women who have come forward, who had continued to talk about this. This case started back before the term “#MeToo” was in the public consciousness, before anyone heard of Nassar, unless they were a patient of his being abused by him. And the dialogue kept going and growing, and the movement kept gaining power. Ultimately, it was the letter that was found in Utah from Columbia’s chairman, who apologized to the patient in 1995 for being assaulted, and he told her he was going to take care of this when he got back from vacation, and never did a thing, except cover it up and expose more people. And ultimately, when those reports started gaining traction, that seems to be when the federal prosecutor stepped in, indicted him again, and now he’s in prison for what hopefully will be the rest of his life.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, and I wanted to ask Eva, and maybe Anthony DiPietro could also talk about this: What kind of long-term changes has Columbia agreed to that you think are most important?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: I think they haven’t agreed to anything other than the settlement. They haven’t done anything other than cover up this abuse for many, many years. Maybe they have offered a patient safety clinic, something like that, but nothing has really happened. We are in conversations with the Attorney General’s Office to see how we are going to have institutional accountability, because, again, this cannot just stay on a settlement offer payment, because they have all the money to continue to pay abuse as much as they — many more years. What is going to happen in each clinic and each hospital to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, they have yet to say that. And we are waiting for them to come forward and say how that’s going to look like.
AMY GOODMAN: You, many people are getting Robert Hadden’s name off your child’s birth certificate?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: That is part of the deal?
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Eva, you now have three kids. You’re DACA. You talked with me earlier about how your mother was your support but also feels guilty about not speaking out earlier. What message you have to young, vulnerable people who are terrified to come forward, yet know? And you knew from that moment, in your greatest pain, around delivery, that there was something really bad happening here.
EVA SANTOS VELOZ: I’ll say, more than anything, to trust yourself. Trust yourself. Once you have that feeling that something is wrong, something is definitely wrong. I knew it since the first moment that he did it. And I’ve been holding it ever since. And it’s just a matter of trusting yourself and using the people around you and your community to be supported and come forward, and know that you have the protection. You have the resources. You have great lawyers like Anthony DiPietro that will support you along the way, and great collective sisters that — like I found, that has made this journey easier, or else we would have been — I would have been really alone throughout this time.
AMY GOODMAN: These are the largest settlements in U.S. history, well over a billion dollars, vying with USC — right? — University of Southern California, Anthony?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Yes, that’s correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Women, the average that they’ll be getting is?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Just over $1.3 million on a per case average, which is the highest amount to date.
AMY GOODMAN: And the number of women who are involved at this point?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Five hundred and seventy-six in this current round.
AMY GOODMAN: Can other women come forward now that will hear this?
ANTHONY T. DIPIETRO: Yeah, so, each case is going have to be evaluated on an individual basis. You know, the work that everyone has done so far in passing a law called the Adult Survivors Act, passing a law called the New York Gender-Motivated Violence Act — those statutes provided a temporary timeframe for people to come forward, file a case, even though it was beyond the statute of limitations. Those have now ended, but there still could be opportunities for people to come forward on an individual basis.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Laurie, your final comment as this chapter comes to an end — Robert Hadden in jail, Columbia and the hospital being held accountable? Your son is 17 years old. You were assaulted a few days before he was born.
LAURIE MALDONADO: Yeah, I think this — again, this is like a big win for us, just, like, Hadden being convicted. But when we were in court with Hadden, you know, he was put in handcuffs and taken to jail, and we were assured that he would never harm anybody again. And that was the end of that. But there was nobody in the courtroom representing Columbia. And still, to this day, they haven’t done much, you know, in terms of hearing our voices, in terms of making internal changes, in terms of an external investigation. And that’s what we’re trying to put forth. And so, you know, my hope is holding Columbia accountable to that same level.
And that is really a lot of — I feel like survivors are a force to be reckoned with. We are a strong group. We do a lot of incredible things. And one of the things that Eva was really highlighting was our work with the Attorney General’s Office. Like, you know, we know, if we want Columbia to change, that it’s survivors that need to hold them accountable. So, we’re really so — this is huge. And at the same time, we have lots of work to do to make sure that this never happens at this scale again.
AMY GOODMAN: Laurie Maldonado, Eva Santos Veloz and their attorney, Anthony T. DiPietro, representing hundreds of women who were sexually abused by Dr. Robert Hadden, now in jail for decades.
When we come back, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights finds U.S. border agents responsible for torture in the beating death of a Mexican father in 2010. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “El Hielo,” or ”ICE,” by La Santa Cecilia, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.
