Slime-o gyno vics bash Cy
FOR OVER a year, four women struggled to understand why a demented Columbia University gynecologist was allowed to plead guilty to assaulting only some of them without serving any jail time.
Now, following questions about Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.’s investigations into the Trump SoHo development and Harvey Weinstein, they think they know why: They believe the prosecutor was compromised by campaign donations.
“I was under the impression they were going to fight for me and the other victims, but they didn’t do their part,” a 35-year-old victim of the perverted gynecologist said. “They owe me an apology!” Dr. Robert Hadden was charged in June 2014 with fondling and performing oral sex on six patients. As many as 18 women said they’d been abused by him during exams, though most fell outside of the criminal statute of limitations, according to an attorney involved in the case, Anthony DiPietro.
In March 2016, Hadden was sentenced for one felony count of a criminal sex act and one count of forcible touching, a misdemeanor, covering two victims.
Hadden was ordered to relinquish his medical license and register as a sex offender. He avoided any jail time, thanks to a deal with prosecutors.
Hadden was represented by Isabelle Kirshner, whose firm and partners has donated $42,000 to Vance since 2008. Kirshner, of Clayman & Rosenberg, donated $250 the same day she submitted a motion opposing prosecutors’ plan to use evidence from patients whose assaults fell outside the statute of limitations, CBS News reported Saturday. She also donated $1,000 to Vance two months after Hadden was sentenced.
The donations, first reported by the the International Business Times, provided a moment of clarity for four women perplexed by the handling of the case. They spoke to the Daily News anonymously.
“In hindsight it makes so much sense,” another victim, also 35, said.
“There were back channels — political pressure from above, to delay things, dismiss things, sweep things under the rug,” she speculated.
Emails between that victim and prosecutors showed that she’d been offered the opportunity to submit a statement to be read in court at Hadden’s sentencing. But at the last minute, Vance’s office reversed itself and said she could not submit a victim impact statement.
Another victim said she didn’t learn until after the fact that Hadden had pleaded guilty to her assault. “I had no communication with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He had actually pleaded guilty to the disgusting acts he committed against me,” the victim said. “I should have known.”
Two other women said emails and phone calls frequently went unreturned.
“If anyone wants to know why so many women and men don’t report sex crimes when they happen, add this to the already long list,” DiPietro said.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said she had agreed to the plea deal — not Vance. “Obtaining a felony conviction was the goal in this case. Had the case gone to trial, that may well not have happened,” Agnifilo said.
Vance spokeswoman Joan Vollero added that Kirshner’s contribution to Vance’s campaign would have been flagged and returned if there’d been any conflict.
Kirshner’s firm said donations to Vance were made only because its lawyers “believed and still believe that he is the best qualified candidate to be district attorney in Manhattan.”
Questions about Vance’s campaign donors surfaced after it emerged President Trump’s longtime attorney, Marc Kasowitz, donated $31,993 in 2013 — following Vance’s decision not to seek charges against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Attorney David Boies, who has represented Weinstein, donated $10,000 to Vance in 2015, months after he chose not to pursue charges against the movie mogul for allegedly groping model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.
“Donations have zero to do with the outcome of any case in front of Cy Vance or the district attorney’s office,” Steve Sigmund, Vance’s campaign spokesman, said.
Vance announced last week he will seek a 90-day independent review of all his campaign donations and not accept money from criminal defense lawyers in the meantime. “The DA’s office is the one with the power to give victims justice or not,” one victim of Hadden said. “It’s terrible they could be put in a position where they have to weigh doing the right thing versus supporting a financial donor. I don’t know how legal.” Vance it’s possible that write-in challenger. is is running unopposed for a third term, save for a lastminute,