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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Allison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm really grateful you are here. On today's show, we'll speak with dancer-choreographer Steven Melendez, and Director, David Peterson about the new documentary Lift, which follows a group of housing insecure children who get the chance to learn ballet. We'll talk about two different aspects of parenting, the one in which social media makes you feel incompetent, and the other one in which having a baby can be a friendship killer. We'll be taking calls on both of those segments.

That is our plan. Let's get this started with some new reporting about a predatory gynecologist at Columbia University. Listeners, we want to let you know that this segment will deal with sexual assault. If at any time you feel you need support, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline. That number is 1-800-656-4673. Earlier this summer, a sexual abuser, perhaps one of the most prolific in New York City history was sentenced to 20 years in prison. We know of 242 survivors who have come forward, why so many, and why did it take so long?

New reporting suggests that his employer, Columbia University, was a huge part of the problem. Dr. Robert Hadden was a respected OBGYN employed by Columbia University Medical Center, who worked at hospitals and clinics around the city. He was also a serial sexual predator who routinely assaulted his patients during examinations. Many were pregnant or newly postpartum when he touched them inappropriately with his fingers, in some cases his mouth, and others. The women he assaulted were from diverse backgrounds and included former presidential and mayoral candidate Andrew Yang's wife Evelyn.

Hadden assaulted a woman while she was in labor. He even allegedly assaulted a teenage girl that he'd helped deliver years ago. In 2012, Hadden was finally arrested after one of his patients called the police, but only days later, Hadden was back at work where he assaulted more women. New reporting published in ProPublica and New York Magazine and laid out in a new podcast explores Dr. Robert Hadden, how he was able to continue abusing women for so many years, and how Columbia University protected him.

It also looks at who gets what representation and the attention of law enforcement. It also spotlights the brave women who have tirelessly sought justice for the abuse they suffered in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. The podcast is called Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University. The report in ProPublica is titled How Columbia Ignored Women Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years. It is co-authored with New York Magazine. Joining me now to discuss the reporting are Laura Beil and Bianca Fortis. Laura is a journalist and the host of the Exposed Podcast. Welcome, Laura.

Laura Beil: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Bianca is a ProPublica reporting fellow who co-wrote the accompanying article alongside Laura. Bianca, nice to meet you.

Bianca Fortis: Thank you for having us.

Alison Stewart: For the record, we reached out to Columbia University. We'll share the response as we get into this conversation. Laura, how did you first decide to report this case?

Laura Beil: I first learned about this case back in 2019 and one of the survivors, the only survivor who had gone public was at a conference. We were on a panel together. It was a panel I was moderating, and I had never heard of Robert Hadden, even though the case had been going on for some time. The shocking thing to me was not only that it had occurred and that it had happened for so long, but that he was essentially free. He was retired and living in New Jersey, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it and asking questions about it. It was in my mind, and I had several conversations with the survivor, Marissa Hoechstetter over the years, and then fully turned to the reporting about 2 years, 18 months ago when I teamed up with Bianca to really ask a series of questions that we felt had not been asked on the story.

Alison Stewart: Bianca, what were some of the challenges you encountered that were different from other reporting that you've done?

Bianca Fortis: I think just the size of the story, there are so many survivors today. We know of 245, but we suspect that there are likely many more. In some ways, it was really difficult to get people to talk to us. The survivors that we interviewed were very open, but we really wanted to focus the story on Columbia and what they may have known or didn't know at the time Hadden was practicing and it was incredibly difficult to get anyone to engage with us and go on the record. Also, just the history of the case. The earliest patient report that we're aware of is in 1992. We spent a lot of time trying to rebuild what had happened, and it was difficult because this all started so long ago.

Alison Stewart: Laura, what was Hadden's reputation before the allegations emerged?

Laura Beil: Well, from people we talked to, he was outwardly, I should have the caveat outwardly. He was well-liked, he was seen as a respected OBGYN. Maybe the only former colleague we talked to who would go on the record with us said he was seen as quiet, maybe a little awkward, but there was nothing that would indicate outwardly what he was doing. I should say that's often the case with sexual predators. They're the ones that people trust, and so that in itself was not surprising to me.

Alison Stewart: Bianca, when the victims of Dr. Hadden started coming forward, did there seem like there were patterns that emerged? How would you describe those patterns?

Bianca Fortis: It was interesting. Hadden didn't have a type of patient that he targeted. They came from all different ethnic backgrounds, different income brackets. They lived in different neighborhoods in Manhattan. What we did determine is that he tended to prey on women who were inexperienced. They were younger, it may have been their first time visiting an OBGYN, it may have been their first pregnancy. Maybe they were dealing with a high-risk pregnancy. They were particularly vulnerable. In terms of the actual abuse, he would groom patients, he would ask them very personal questions that would escalate over time. He would touch them in sexual ways, but he would also blend that with medical care, and so it was confusing to patients to determine what was abuse and what wasn't.

We've heard even recently still that some of them are still trying to sort out what was what. For example, he also didn't use gloves. He would lie to patients and tell them that they had latex allergies, so he had an excuse not to use the gloves. Also quite significant was the fact that he would maneuver around other people and he would find ways to be alone with patients in the room. Sometimes the abuse would happen with chaperones in the room with the nurse or a medical assistant present. In other times, he would find ways to get them out of the room and go back in by himself, and so he would be alone with them. We've heard dozens and dozens of these stories, the same patterns over and over again.

Alison Stewart: One of the things that really struck me was one of the women in the podcast notes that he gave her, I believe it was a breast exam, in a way that was no breast exam or not necessarily a needed breast exam. There was nothing about that moment that that should even happen, even if it was done correctly and appropriately. It was interesting also, Laura, that the idea, and Bianca touched on it, that there were some other medical professionals sometimes in the room. He was able to shield his behavior, but with people like Hadden, and we've seen it in other situations, there's always somebody who says, "I knew something wasn't quite right," or there are murmurs or there are rumblings. Did you get a sense of that at all?

Laura Beil: We were not able to talk to any of the medical assistants. We tried and none of them would talk to us so we do have this from the patient point of view, but for example, one patient told us that the chaperone turned her back during the exam. This is actually coming up in an episode where she turned her back as if she had something to do on the counter, but the counter was empty. Sometimes he did it with them in the room, sometimes he would maneuver himself where he couldn't be seen. We really don't know exactly how much the chaperones knew or didn't know because we weren't able to talk to them. We do know from plenty of women that the abuse occurred when they were in the room sometimes. As Bianca said, quite typically what he would do is go back into the room. He would find an excuse to be alone with the women.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Laura Beil and Bianca Fortis. We're talking about the podcast Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University as well as the piece How Columbia Ignored Women Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years. I want to play a little bit of audio from the podcast and it is audio of a patient named Laurie Kanyok. Bianca, I'm going to ask you to explain a little bit about who she was and then we'll play a bit from the podcast where she describes why she decided to go to the police.

Bianca Fortis: Sure. Laurie Kanyok when she saw Hadden in 2012, she was 38 years old. She's a professional dancer and she had a high-risk pregnancy. What she has said is that at the time she sought out Columbia because of the prestige associated with the brand and Hadden was her doctor. Over the course of a few months, she had had a few strange incidents with her where he made her feel uncomfortable, but she was so focused on the outcome of the pregnancy and her baby that she just didn't allow herself to think too much about it.

Then finally in June, she went back for a six-week postpartum appointment. After she gave birth, she went back for a checkup and Hadden did his typical maneuver where he would find a reason to be alone. He went back into the room, told her to lay back down, and forgive me for the graphic language.

Alison Stewart: You know what, we're going to actually let Laurie, this is the clip that we've picked. Let's take a listen.

Laurie Kanyok: I laid down, I had my phone in my hands, and he said, go ahead, put your feet in stirrups, so I did. He grabbed one of those paper blanket things that they have, and he put it over my knees and he pulled it taut. If you can imagine, your knees are up, it formed a bridge like a wall. All of a sudden his head dipped down and he licked my vagina.

Alison Stewart: Laurie went to the police. Laurie calls her partner, they call the police, the police go to their home. While they're at the home, there's a voicemail left by Dr. Hadden on Laurie's phone that same afternoon he assaulted her, and that same afternoon she called the police. Let's listen to that.

Dr. Hadden: Yes, hi Laurie. It's Dr. Hadden calling. It's like 4:30 on Friday.

Laurie Kanyok: He started in his very mild tone of voice and then he proceeded to get more and more agitated.

Dr. Hadden: What the heck happened? What's going on? I'm very upset. I don't know what's going on. Please, call me back.

Alison Stewart: Laura, assuming everything you know about this case, when you hear that voicemail, what do you hear?

Laura Beil: I hear a man who knows that he's been caught and is desperately trying to influence her. At the point in the voicemail, he knows that she is either going to call the police or has called the police and he's desperately trying to control the situation. One thing I also, in hearing those clips again, and I've thought about this a lot, is that 911 call that she made set in motion all the series of events that we're talking about today but I often think what if she hadn't done that?

It's not outside the realm of possibility, given what we know. He could still be practicing because that called attention to it, and it took a long time, and justice took a long time, and the survivors fought for a long time for justice but that's really what brought all of this. It cracked everything open but if it hadn't happened, could he still be there today? I think about that a lot.

Alison Stewart: Bianca, from reporting on this subject, why do you think more women hadn't called the police? Why would Laurie be the first?

Bianca Fortis: Well, I think a lot of them were just scared. It's confusing situation because some of them, first, there are many patients who didn't actually realize that they had been sexually abused because of the way that he would do the abuse was confusing because he was also caring for them but also, they trusted him. This is their doctor, this is their OBGYN. For some of them, he delivered the children and so he really exploited that trust and so it's been confusing for a lot of them to navigate what actually happened. Then for those who knew, I think there was just a lot of fear. Unfortunately, there was a lot of fear about whether they would even be believed, actually, because it felt-- As one woman told me, she said, "If I had told someone, who are they going to believe me or a Columbia doctor?"

Alison Stewart: My guests are Laura Beil, reporter and host of Exposed: Cover-up at Columbia University, and Bianca Fortis, co-author of How Columbia Ignored Women Undermined Prosecutors, Protected a Predator for More Than 20 Years, a piece from ProPublica and New York Magazine. After the break, we'll get into Columbia's role. We'll hear a statement from Columbia University and have more with our guests. This is All Of It.

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are Laura Beil, reporter and host of Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University, and Bianca Fortis, co-author of the piece, How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors, and Protected a Predator for More than 20 Years. The piece was co-authored through ProPublica and New York Magazine. We're talking about the case of Dr. Robert Hadden, an OBGYN who assaulted his patients. Listeners, if you're just joining the conversation, we do want to let you know that we are discussing sexual assault.

If at any time you feel you need support, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline. That number is 1-800-656-4673. Bianca, days after Hadden's arrest, he was back at work. He assaulted more women, including Evelyn Yang, wife of former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Why would Columbia let Hadden go back to work after his arrest? Was there something special about him at this point or maybe the point is that he wasn't so special.

Bianca Fortis: We're not aware that there was anything special about him that would have afforded him this opportunity to return to work but we think most likely that Columbia just didn't believe Laurie. They just didn't believe the complaint. They trusted their doctor. They told us they did an internal investigation into the incident, but Laurie told us that they actually never even reached out to her.

Alison Stewart: Laura, in your reporting you write, "Hadden, 65, was sentenced in July to 20 years in federal prison, the result of a long, arduous process that Columbia often undermined. One of the country's most acclaimed private universities was deeply involved in containing, deflecting, and distancing itself from the scandal at every step." Would you give an example that you found in your reporting?

Laura Beil: Yes, so one of the things we learned is that they didn't turn over all the evidence in their possession. We know this because the district attorney's office in 2020, they actually launched a criminal investigation into Columbia to try to determine whether they complied with subpoenas, whether they turned over what they had. For example, they didn't turn over email exchanges with Columbia administrators discussing patient complaints against Hadden.

Probably most significantly, they didn't turn over a letter that was in Hadden's personnel file that had been written by the acting chairman of the department in 1994, responding to a written patient complaint about Columbia, where she documented in great detail, it's a three-page, single-spaced letter that she sent in '94, documenting what had happened to her. They didn't turn over that letter to the prosecutors at the time.

Alison Stewart: We reached out to the Columbia University Irving Medical Center for comment on this case. They responded by directing us to a statement released online yesterday by University President Manu Shafik and Irving Medical Center CEO Katrina Armstrong, which reads in part, "As an institution, Columbia continues to grapple with the magnitude of harm done to the patients of former physician Robert Hadden. Nothing can excuse that these patients were mistreated in a setting where they should have been cared for and safe. We are heartbroken for those who have suffered and continue to suffer from these terrible actions.

Hadden will spend the rest of his life in prison thanks to these courageous women. We commend them for coming forward. We offer our deepest apologies to all his victims and their loved ones." Laura, as you were reporting the story, how did Columbia react to you and your reporting and your requests for comment and information?

Laura Beil: We tried multiple times. We've been trying for over a year to interview someone at Columbia to respond directly to what we were finding, to our questions, and no one was ever made available. The two times we did get official responses from them, it was just in brief, highly curated responses, but hardly anything directly to what we were asking. I think the last letter we sent to them was seven pages of questions.

Alison Stewart: Bianca, what were some of those questions? What did you want answered?

Bianca Fortis: Like Laura said, it was seven pages of questions. It was a lot. I think fundamentally for me, I have two questions that I would really want them to answer. One is, why did you allow Hadden to go back to work after a credible complaint of sexual assault? They knew that the NYPD was investigating the case, and they allowed him to go back four days later, four days after the arrest. Secondly, is this point of notification.

Throughout all of this, Columbia has never formally notified Hadden's former patients that he's been convicted of sexual abuse. We're pretty confident that there are probably more women who are survivors and maybe just don't realize they've not met other survivors. They've not heard what's going on. This was another question we had for Columbia is why won't you notify the other former patients and it's a question that they still haven't answered.

Laura Beil: Just to follow up on Bianca's point, a lot of women are out there. We know from talking with them, thinking that this only happened to them. They know it was an assault, they know it was criminal, but they think maybe in their mind, "Oh, it was just something about me," and they have no idea. They're carrying this burden alone because they don't know and Columbia has not notified them.

Alison Stewart: Part of the podcast gets into the legal part of this story, the legal machinations that go on, politics gets involved as well. Laura, why did the prosecution ultimately decide not to go to trial with the initial case against Hadden which made that clear initially in 2012? There was a plea deal that was accepted.

Laura Beil: There was, and that's a very complicated situation, but as we talk about in the podcast, in the second episode of the podcast really a lot of it has to do with the culture of the DA's office at the time. It has to do with the relationships, the complexity of the case. There was the lead assistant district attorney on the case, she very much wanted to go to trial. In the end, she was overruled and he was given this plea deal that essentially allowed him to go free. It's not an easy answer that's why it's a whole episode of the podcast. I think a lot of it just has to do with the way these cases were viewed and the complexity of the case at the time we're talking 2014 to 2016.

Alison Stewart: I want to play a clip from the podcast Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University. This is of Laurie who we were speaking about earlier telling you about her reaction to finding out that the DA had accepted a plea deal in the Hadden case.

Laurie Kanyok: She says, "You won. He's taking a plea deal, and you stopped him." She goes, "The thing is he's not going to have any jail time but he is going to lose his medical license around the world and that's what you wanted to happen. Am I right?" I was like, "Why is that a win?"

Alison Stewart: Bianca, what were some of the other details that were really upsetting to survivors?

Bianca Fortis: He never went to prison. I think that was the most fundamental point is that he was able to walk away and basically just sit in retirement. He lost his medical license so he wasn't able to keep practicing but he was basically just retired. He was also able to choose which charges he was going to plead guilty to. It was one felony and one misdemeanor. Some of the survivors said that they didn't feel heard because he didn't plead to those specific charges related to them and so they felt like they were not heard as part of the case.

Alison Stewart: One of the survivors you interviewed for the podcast is Evelyn Yang, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang. One thing you really point out, and she points out is she was very low profile. She was, I think the phrase was internet anonymous or social media anonymous. Sometimes she was misidentified in the media as other women were misidentified as her. That's how low a profile she had a public profile, but she really was able to leverage her platform to bring more attention to Hadden and to this abuse. When you spoke to her, why did she want to do this? This person who had clearly remained very private?

Laura Beil: This was an extremely difficult decision for her because the context for this as well is that she filed a civil suit against Columbia to try to get more information. She wasn't really after money, but she thought as a plaintiff, maybe she could find answers. Columbia had fought her anonymity for years. They had gone to court to try to expose her identity. She eventually did decide to go public, but it was a huge risk for her because it was during her husband's presidential campaign and she knew it, and she really wrestled with it.

At the time, she didn't go public to try to turn the tide of the case which it ended up doing because so many more women came forward at the time. She just wanted other women to know about this because she knew that there is a certain level of comfort in shared trauma, what I was talking about earlier, with women thinking they're alone. She wanted to use her platform to tell women you're not alone in this. That was really her purpose was just to tell women. It was a huge decision and a huge risk on her part because it was during the midst of the campaign. She didn't really know if she would be believed and she didn't know what the reaction would be from the political press.

Alison Stewart: There was another set of charges that were brought against Robert Hadden even after there was a settlement. How were another set of charges able to be brought against him? These are the charges that actually ultimately led to his jail time.

Bianca Fortis: Evelyn notably, she came forward and did an interview on CNN, and many other women saw that interview so they start to come forward. One of those women is a woman named Diane Monson who lives in Utah. She was watching this interview air on TV, and she realized that it was the same doctor that she had had. Laura mentioned this earlier, the letter that was sent to Columbia in 1994. It was Diane's letter. She came forward and this proved evidence of Hadden's misconduct going back decades.

The survivors started to speak out because they felt this plea deal had sort of been a slap on the wrist. More women started coming forward. The DOJ started to investigate. Eventually, he was indicted in 2020 on charges of inducement or enticing victims to cross state lines to engage in illegal sexual activity. The state lines piece is very important because since it crosses jurisdiction, that's what makes it a federal crime. That's the strategy that prosecutors were able to use.

Alison Stewart: Laura, people have read this story, people listen to your podcast. Over the summer there was another big New York Times podcast, The Retrievals about a nurse at Yale University who was stealing fentanyl at a fertility clinic and requiring women, therefore, women went through birth and various procedures without any painkillers. Laura, do you see any connective tissue between that story and your story?

Laura Beil: Yes, I do. I think in both cases and The Retrievals one of the central themes of The Retrievals which was very well done is not believing women. I think in both of these cases, they were different circumstances, different crimes but in both of these cases, women were not believed. Even Laurie called 911 and she was not believed, but there were other ways that women tried to tell people at Columbia. Keep in mind, this is a very difficult thing to articulate because you're doubting yourself.

You trust your doctor and so they would come to other doctors and say, " Hadden made me uncomfortable," or "I don't want to go back there. I don't want him touching my baby." There were these signs where women did try to tell what had happened to them or tried to report, tried to go to a doctor and say, "Who do I need to talk to about this?" They were not believed. I think that's the case in both of these situations is not taking women seriously, not hearing what they're trying to tell you.

Alison Stewart: You can read How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors, and Protected a Predator for More than 20 Years from ProPublica and New York Magazine. That was co-written by my guest Bianca Fortis. You can listen to the podcast, Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University reported and hosted by my guest Laura Beil. Laura and Bianca, thank you for the work.

Laura Beil: Thank you for the invitation.

Bianca Fortis: Thank you for having us.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It.

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