Lawyers give opening statements in sexual assault trial of suspended Long Island urologist Darius Paduch

Dr. Darius Paduch took advantage of his adolescent and young adult patients' desperation to resolve “their most private concerns” by sexually abusing them, a federal prosecutor said Thursday during opening statements of the criminal trial of the urologist who worked on Long Island until his arrest last year.

“What the defendant did was not sexual medicine,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jun Xiang, referring to Paduch's specialty. “It was sexual assault.”

Paduch, 56, who worked for New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health until his April 2023 arrest, and before that for Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, is charged with 13 felonies for allegedly sexually abusing and assaulting six minors and two adults. He could spend life in prison if convicted.

Michael Baldassare, a New Jersey-based defense attorney for Paduch, argued that the government's investigation was “flawed and unreliable,” and he repeatedly referred to the “money lawyers” who he said are representing all but one of the alleged victims in separate lawsuits.

“What these former patients will say from the witness stand is exactly what they say in the lawsuits, for money,” he said.

Hundreds of other ex-patients also have filed civil suits against Paduch.

The state suspended Paduch’s medical license and he has been in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his arrest. Paduch's specialties included erectile dysfunction, male infertility and genital abnormalities. He lived in North Bergen, New Jersey, before his arrest.

A visibly nervous 25-year-old New Jersey man who had started seeing Paduch at age 14 for erectile dysfunction took the stand to describe how Paduch had masturbated him at least three times. He said he believed it was part of his medical treatment.

The man glanced down while on the stand, never looking at Paduch while testifying or when entering or leaving the courtroom.

Newsday does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse or assault without their consent.

Xiang said Paduch sometimes obtained semen from his alleged victims while masturbating them. Urologists will testify later in the trial that there is never a medical reason for a physician to manually masturbate a patient, he said. In addition, Xiang said, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, where much of the alleged abuse occurred, has a private room for patients to obtain semen samples themselves.

“What happened here cannot be justified on medical grounds,” Xiang said. Instead, he said, Paduch's actions were for “his own sexual gratification.”

Patients' medical records did not discuss the masturbation, and parents were not told of it, he said.

Baldassare cited the “media blitz” from law firms soliciting clients for civil suits — including radio advertisements and ads that come up after typing Paduch's name in search engines. 

“The former patients know if you convict Dr. Paduch, they have a better chance of winning money,” he said.

Baldassare said some of the alleged victims texted Paduch for medication refills or medical advice after they stopped seeing him in person — until they sued him in late 2022 or in 2023. One texted him to say, “You are the best doctor in the world,” but later sued him, Baldassare said.

Baldassare said the civil-case attorneys sometimes were with federal prosecutors when they interviewed the former patients. 

“The investigation in this case was biased and flawed, and it was done with the Department of Justice's mind made up,” he said.

The jury of nine women and three men, and four alternates, was seated Thursday, on the second day of the trial at the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Paduch is charged with seven counts of inducing a person to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity, and six counts of inducing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

Paduch worked at Northwell locations in Great Neck and Lake Success from 2019 until his arrest, according to court documents. He worked for Weill Cornell from 2003 to 2019, documents state.

The 2022 state Adult Survivors Act gave alleged victims of adult sexual abuse and assault a one-year window — ending in November — to file suits even if the alleged offenses happened years ago.

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.