Cornell Settles With Feds Over Sex Abuse Cases

Cornell’s long saga is coming to an end regarding Dr. Darius Paduch, a Polish-born Urologist on the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical School (WCM) in Manhattan. Cornell has agreed to pay $10 million per year for three years to upgrade its internal patient safety system (and share it with other healthcare providers) as part of a settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

This settlement comes after Dr. Paduch was sentenced on November 20, 2024, to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting male patients — including six minors — for more than a decade. He was convicted on May 8, 2024, of 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 for the years of abuse. He abused boys as young as 13 years old.

Background on Weill Cornell Medical School

Since 1898, Cornell has operated a medical school in Manhattan and has been affiliated with New York Hospital since 1913. Under that arrangement, Cornell medical faculty staff the hospital as Cornell employees and collect medical fees through the university, while New York Hospital (now New York Presbyterian Hospital) operates the non-doctor aspects of the hospital using fees for specific hospital stays. Cornell medical faculty are supervised by their Department Chairmen who in turn report to the Dean of the Medical School. 

The medical school operates under a separate Board of Overseers, which in turn reports to Cornell’s Board of Trustees. Although the medical school operates as a separate “profit center,” the university is responsible for all of its employees, and the Weill Cornell operation represents 29% of Cornell’s annual budget.

Endowment gifts that designate the medical school are invested in Cornell’s Long Term Investment Pool, along with similar funds benefiting the Ithaca campus. In 2024-25, WCM received $76 million in endowment income.  In addition, a portion of the $4 billion Starr Foundation endowment payout is awarded to eliminate the student loan component for WCM medical students, so Cornell MDs graduate debt-free. The Starr Foundation’s commitment has been valued at $90 million.

The Misconduct

Cornell has refrained from issuing public statements until Monday, while the criminal charges and the associated civil lawsuits were pending against Dr. Paduch and Cornell. The July 25, 2026 settlement agreement recites, in graphic detail, Dr. Paduch’s crimes and Cornell’s failure to properly supervise him.

Dr. Paduch joined Weill Cornell in 2003 and, after a series of promotions, became the Director of Sexual Health & Medicine in the Urology Department and the Associate Research Director of the Cornell fellowship program in Male Infertility and Andrology. He specialized in treating male infertility, Klinefelter Syndrome, and erectile and sexual dysfunction.

As early as 2009, Dr. Paduch sexually abused his patients, both at his office, his home, and on his boat. The government has identified over 50 victims of his abuse. Reportedly, Dr. Paduch wrote off $50,000 in medical charges due from one of his victims. In addition, the Epstein files include emails regarding a two-and-a-half-hour visit between Jeffrey Epstein and Dr. Paduch.

The settlement agreement reports the failures of the “former Urology Chair” to supervise Dr. Paduch, with the first three abuse reports being largely ignored by the chair. The investigation and escalation of a fourth victim’s report led to Cornell terminating Dr. Paduch in April 2019 by not renewing his contract. Dr. Paduch then applied for a job at Northwell Health, a hospital on Long Island, and the former Urology Chair gave Dr. Paduch a recommendation with “some reservations” without disclosing the sexual abuse allegations.

Cornell later fired the former Urology Chair after completing an internal investigation.

Since Dr. Paduch’s departure from Cornell, he has been subject to an estimated 300 civil court cases. Under New York law, although the statute of limitations has run for most cases, certain minor victims can still sue after they become adults. Because Dr. Paduch was a Cornell employee, victim lawsuits named Cornell along with Dr. Paduch. Cornell has paid an estimated $1 billion to his victims.

By way of comparison, in 2024-25, WCM’s total annual clinical services revenue was $2.19 billion, so Cornell had to borrow funds to pay the liabilities associated with Dr. Paduch’s misconduct.

Cornell’s Federal Settlement

Among the steps that Cornell undertook in the criminal settlement are:

• A comprehensive patient chaperone requirement.
• Standardized processes for investigating sexual misconduct complaints.
• A commitment to resolve any initial inquiry into sexual misconduct reports within 3 business days
• Self-disclosure of any future federal sexual misconduct crimes to the U.S. Attorney’s Office
• Place any alleged subject of a sexual misconduct report off duty pending investigation.
• Maintain a multi-disciplinary “Advisory Group” of Weill Cornell leadership to meet three times per week.
• Improved training on sexual abuse prevention.
• Cornell will create and fund a new Institute for Safe Patient Care and Patient Empowerment to spread best practices for healthcare providers in New York and nationally.

Cornell has not commented on the source of the $30 million it promises to fund the new institute, 

President Kotlikoff’s statement concludes,

“As always, we want to be very clear that there is no place in our community — or in any medical institution — for the type of misconduct that occurred here. All of us at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine are committed to learning from these events, continuing to strengthen our safeguards, and continuing to advance our mission of patient care, research, and education.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office also issued a statement:

“Today’s landmark agreement with WCM is a direct reflection of our Office’s pledge to prioritize combating sexual abuse through a victim-centered approach,” said Criminal Division Chief Amanda Houle. “When victims are front of mind for our core community institutions—including in healthcare—sexual abuse is better detected, reported, and prosecuted so that perpetrators are held responsible and others are deterred. Today’s agreement shows the benefits to victims when we pair criminal accountability for individual perpetrators with institutional obligations to maintain the strongest possible controls to safeguard against future sexual abuse. Thanks to the work of our dedicated Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Darius Paduch is spending his life in prison for his horrific crimes and, importantly, WCM, a leader in healthcare for New Yorkers, is committed to maintaining an industry-leading sexual-abuse prevention program and to self-reporting any future federal crimes involving sexual misconduct to our Office.’

Prof. Richard F. Bensel, Government, said:

“A billion dollars is a lot of money, and the settlement will further weaken Cornell’s financial position. The $30 million for the Institute for Safe Patient Care and Patient Empowerment is comparatively minor. However, the Institute will also, apparently, be committed to an “automatic” transfer of all complaints, including what might be unsupported allegations, to the federal government for possible prosecution. This appears to formally integrate Cornell into the federal judicial system in a way that sets a very bad precedent. Imagine, for example, a similar arrangement for something like McCarthy Era enforcement of political loyalty oaths. It is not the money that bothers me but the wholesale surrender of university responsibility to uphold ethical principles independently of federal authority.”

Prof. David A. Bateman, President of the Cornell Chapter of the AAUP, said:

“What happened at Weill Cornell Medicine was deeply disturbing, and it is clear that deep changes in how Cornell responds to complaints about misconduct at WCM are needed. One category of change should be more robust institutions of faculty governance. WCM has long suffered from weaker faculty governance institutions than the Ithaca campus. Its faculty are also more likely to be contingent, rather than having the protections of tenure. We know that less secure faculty, with fewer institutional opportunities to govern and enforce standards, are less able to speak out when they see abuses. Cornell should take this opportunity to deepen rather than weaken collective governance institutions.”

However, given Cornell’s mishandling of this case, it is difficult to see how Day Hall can claim the moral authority to replace community-supported judicial systems on the Ithaca campus, with Administrator-imposed processes and procedures that many critics consider unjust. At a time when Cornell will spend $30 million to develop and disseminate best practices to protect and empower medical patients, it is actively rewriting the Ithaca campus’ judicial system to further viciate students’ procedural rights when accused of misconduct, including peaceful protests.