Tom Giuffra PartnerStatement from our firm
I am pleased to announce that our firm has resolved 25 of our civil abuse cases involving Dr. Darius Paduch, the former New York urologist now serving a life sentence for the sexual abuse of his patients. For the survivors I represent, these resolutions mark the closure of a long and painful chapter and, I hope, the beginning of another.
On May 8, 2024, following a two-week federal trial in the Southern District of New York, Paduch was convicted on eleven felony counts: six counts of inducing a person to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity and five counts of inducing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity. On November 20, 2024, United States District Judge Ronnie Abrams sentenced him to life in prison and ordered him to pay restitution to his victims. He had been arrested and federally indicted in April 2023.
For more than a decade, from at least 2007 through 2019, Paduch used his position at two of New York’s most prominent medical institutions, Weill Cornell Medicine / NewYork-Presbyterian and, later, Northwell Health, to prey on patients who came to him for care involving sensitive urological and reproductive conditions. His victims were men and boys, a number of them minors at the time of the abuse. Rather than treating them, he exploited the trust that his reputation and his institutions’ prestige conferred, abusing vulnerable patients under the guise of legitimate medical examination.
Years after the abuse, courageous survivors came forward to expose him. The criminal prosecution established Paduch’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil litigation has gone further: the records developed in these cases have laid bare how Paduch’s employers received complaints about his conduct and nonetheless allowed him to continue practicing for years. Hundreds of survivors have since filed civil claims arising from that institutional failure.
The survivors who came forward accomplished two things of lasting importance. First, they stopped Paduch, ensuring that he can never again harm a patient. Second, they made it possible for others who had already been harmed to be heard, to reclaim a measure of control over their lives, and to begin the difficult work of healing.
No monetary settlement can undo what these survivors endured. But a settlement is a meaningful vehicle for restoration. It is a formal acknowledgment that the survivor was wronged, that he has been heard, and that he has been vindicated. A grave injustice was done to each of these men and boys and holding the responsible parties accountable returns to the survivor a measure of the power and dignity that was taken from him. In the truest sense, he is able to begin reclaiming his life.
I am deeply proud of my clients for their courage and their persistence in pursuing justice through to resolution. This is precisely what the civil justice system exists to do: to restore hope and healing to those injured by the conduct of others, and to hold accountable not only the individuals who cause harm but also the institutions that enable it.
