If Dr. Robert Hadden was your OB-GYN at Columbia, we believe you.
Twenty-five years he saw patients at Columbia. Most of them heard nothing from the university about it until a letter arrived in late 2023 (roughly 6,500 went out, eleven years after he'd left) saying what he had been convicted of. The women who've come forward mostly describe the same thing. Something about the exam felt off. They figured it was them, or that they'd misread it, and said nothing. None of them was the only one. If a visit with him has never quite left you, this page is yours.
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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.
Looking for the page about the place, not the man? Columbia University Irving Medical Center survivors.
This applies to you no matter what
- You thought it was an exam. That was the design, and a federal jury said so; the indictment describes him telling patients the conduct was medically necessary.
- You never got Columbia's letter. About 6,500 went out in late 2023, to whatever addresses Columbia had on file, which for a patient from 1996 was probably three moves ago.
- It was decades ago. That's most people here. The first written complaint in the record below is from 1993, and the window covers every year he was there.
- He delivered your children. He was an obstetrician; many of the women who have come forward were pregnant at the time.
- You already took something from Columbia's settlement fund, or it closed on you. Tell us anyway. A lawyer needs to read what you signed before anyone tells you it's finished.
- You live in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, anywhere. The claim sits in New York because that's where the exam room was.
Dr. Robert Hadden: what the public record says, and when
None of what follows is ours. It is the United States Attorney, two federal courts, the Manhattan District Attorney, Columbia's own statements and the reporters who dug through the files, and every line links to its source. Hadden is a convicted man; on him the word is conviction. What Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian knew, and when, is still being litigated, so on the institutions the word is allegation, except where Columbia has said it itself.
1993
A patient filed a written complaint about Hadden with Columbia's risk-management department and the acting head of the OB-GYN department, according to ProPublica's review of the records. The investigation, as described, consisted of asking his medical assistant whether she had seen anything. She said no. The patient never heard back. ProPublica, September 2023.
June 29, 2012, to February 2016
A 911 call from a patient's boyfriend, in the middle of a postpartum visit. That is how it started, June 29, 2012, with Hadden arrested at his own office. Three days later Columbia hand-delivered him a letter, ProPublica reports, saying he could resume clinical activities if he used a chaperone. He did. Eight patients say he assaulted them in the five weeks before he took leave that August. The Manhattan District Attorney's indictment, five felonies and four misdemeanors involving six women, came in June 2014. What he pleaded guilty to, when it finally came round in February 2016, was one felony and one misdemeanor: criminal sexual act in the third degree, and forcible touching. Which got him no jail, no probation. He surrendered his medical license. ProPublica, September 2023.
September 9, 2020
Six counts, from a federal grand jury in Manhattan: enticing and inducing patients to travel across state lines to engage in illegal sexual activity, the conduct running from at least 1993 through 2012. What the indictment describes is a doctor using the Columbia name to persuade patients that what he did was medically necessary, and, often, sending staff out of the room first. U.S. Attorney, S.D.N.Y..
January 24 and July 25, 2023
Two weeks of trial in front of Judge Richard M. Berman, Southern District of New York. Guilty on all four counts. On July 25 came the sentence: 20 years, which was the ceiling the statute set, with supervised release for the rest of his life after that. The judge's words for the conduct were exceptional and unprecedented, and shocking in the extreme. The U.S. Attorney puts the abuse at roughly 1987 to 2012. U.S. Attorney, S.D.N.Y., sentencing release.
November 13, 2023
Columbia announced a $100 million survivors' settlement fund, direct notice to roughly 6,500 former Hadden patients, and an outside investigation led by Joan Loughnane of Sidley Austin. Its president and the medical center's CEO said it plainly: Columbia failed these survivors, and for that we are deeply sorry. Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
October 10, 2024
The appeal went nowhere. Hadden had three complaints, that the jury instructions were wrong, that patients whose cases were never charged shouldn't have been allowed to testify, and that 20 years was too long, and the Second Circuit (No. 23-6822-cr) rejected each one and affirmed both conviction and sentence. The four concurrent 20-year terms stand. U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
May 8, 2025
Columbia agreed to pay $750 million to 576 former patients, on top of $71.5 million to 79 patients in 2021 and $165 million to 147 in 2022. By Columbia's own count it has now paid more than $1 billion on over 1,000 claims. ProPublica.
March 10, 2026
Columbia released the Loughnane report. In the university's own summary, the investigation found ineffective and uneven use of chaperones, a hierarchical culture that suppressed or discouraged reporting, no clear complaint procedure, and failed responses to the reports it did receive, which contributed to the decision to let Hadden return to work after his 2012 arrest. The New York Attorney General has separately opened an investigation into how Columbia handled him. Office of the President, Columbia University.
We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from March 10, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.
Who answers for what Dr. Hadden did
Not him, in any way that matters. He is 67, in federal prison until the 2040s, and the Second Circuit has already turned down his appeal. The claims that are moving are against the institution that gave him an exam room for 25 years: the Trustees of Columbia University, which employed him, and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where he had privileges and delivered babies. Both are named in the suits already filed. Both have paid.
The theory is plain, and it comes in two parts. New York City's Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law lets a person sue not only the man who committed a gender-motivated crime but anyone who enabled it, and the suits say Columbia did. Alongside that sits ordinary institutional negligence: hiring, supervising and keeping a doctor after being told what he was doing. The complaints filed so far point to a written complaint in 1993, another in 2008, and the letter Columbia sent him on July 2, 2012, three days after his arrest, clearing him to see patients again. Columbia's own 2026 report describes failed institutional responses to the reports that were received. That is Columbia talking about Columbia. No court has found any of it yet; the pending cases will decide what it means.
Then there's the $100 million fund Columbia set up in 2023, which took its last application on June 15, 2026. It was for people who didn't want to go to court, and the firm handling most of the court cases has said, publicly, that it paid far less than the settlements did. If you took money from it, or signed anything, that is exactly the paper a lawyer needs to read before anyone tells you your options are gone.
Your deadline: the New York City window for claims against Columbia
For a visit with Hadden at Columbia, the door is open until July 29, 2027. The reason takes a minute to explain. The two state laws you may have heard about are done: the Child Victims Act window shut on August 14, 2021, the Adult Survivors Act window on November 23, 2023. What's left is a city law, and it is a live one. On January 29, 2026, the City Council overrode the mayor's veto and put Int. 1297-A into effect, reopening claims under the City's Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law for 18 months, for conduct before January 9, 2022, against anyone who committed, directed, enabled, participated in or conspired in it. Every visit with Hadden falls before that date, every one happened in Manhattan, and those 18 months run out on July 29, 2027.
Now the honest part. The City's power to reopen these claims is being contested. In a case called Parker v. Alexander, the federal appeals court asked New York's highest court, on March 23, 2026, whether the state's own revival laws preempt the City's, and the Court of Appeals has agreed to answer. Trial judges in Manhattan have paused some cases while they wait. Nobody knows how that comes out, and we won't pretend to. What it means for you is simple: a claim filed inside the window is a claim that exists when the answer comes; a claim not filed is not.
If you were under 18 when you saw him, a separate state rule may apply; New York gives a childhood claim until the person turns 55 in some circumstances. That is a lawyer's question. Either way, nobody should read a date off this page and decide alone.
Your situation still qualifies even if
- You never told anyone. Not a partner, not your mother, not the next gynecologist. Most of the 1,000 people Columbia has paid didn't either, for years.
- You aren't sure whether what happened was an exam or something else. That uncertainty is what he counted on; the indictment says as much.
- You went back to him. For years, maybe. He was your doctor and he was at Columbia, and going back is the most common story there is.
- You already got a letter, or a call, or a settlement offer, and you put it in a drawer.
- A lawyer told you, some time ago, that it was too late. The City reopened this on January 29, 2026. Ask again.
- You live in another state now, or another country. The claim is in New York regardless.
Where he was
Columbia University Medical Center, now Columbia University Irving Medical Center, 622 West 168th Street in Washington Heights, where he was on the OB-GYN faculty from 1987 until he stopped seeing patients in August 2012 · his other Columbia-affiliated offices in Manhattan · NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, for deliveries and procedures. If your contact with him was somewhere else, tell us anyway.
Questions people are asking
Can I still sue Columbia over Robert Hadden?
As of this writing, yes, through New York City's Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, whose reopened window runs from January 29, 2026, to July 29, 2027, and reaches institutions that enabled the conduct. Columbia has settled more than 1,000 such claims already. The window is being challenged in court, which is why the date matters more than usual, and why this is a conversation with a lawyer, not a form.
What about the Columbia settlement fund for Hadden patients?
It's closed. Columbia opened it in January 2024, $100 million, for people who'd rather not go to court, and stopped taking new claims on June 15, 2026. If you went through it, keep whatever you signed and bring it to the call; if you didn't, the court route is what's left.
Is Robert Hadden still in prison?
Yes. Four 20-year terms, all running at once (the most Judge Berman could give him), then supervised release for life. There was an appeal, and on October 10, 2024, the Second Circuit said no to all of it.
How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?
Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.
Will anyone find out I came forward?
Not from us. Your answers go to one person at ME2, and the Hadden cases already filed were brought under initials and Jane Doe names. A lawyer walks you through that before anything is filed, and nothing is filed unless you say so.
Who is Dr. Robert Hadden?
If you're reading this page you probably know, but for anyone who landed here from a search: the OB-GYN a lot of people in Washington Heights had for years. He was on Columbia's faculty from 1987 to 2012, with offices in Manhattan and privileges at NewYork-Presbyterian. What he did, and what happened to him for it, is the timeline above, arrest to appeal, dated and sourced. Right now he is 67 and in federal prison.
Who sees your form
Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer
I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.
What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.
I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.
Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.
What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.
- You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
- A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
- You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.
How this works
ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New York attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.
You never pay a dollar
Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.