Top nerve doc ‘assaulted 17 women’

More than a dozen women from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania say a prominent neurologist used his soughtafter treatments as leverage to coerce them into sex acts.

The 17 women say Dr. Ricardo Cruciani, 63, former chairman of the neurology department at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, spent the last two decades abusing female patients there, at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and at Health Medical Center in New Jersey.

Cruciani (left) pleaded guilty in Philadelphia court Tuesday to misdemeanor charges for groping seven patients while at Drexel last year. The remaining women have filed separate police reports or hired lawyers for civil suits.

Two victims said he coerced them into performing oral sex, and another said he masturbated in front of her. All the women, ages 31 to 55, described unwanted touching and kissing by Cruciani, one of a few doctors with the expertise to treat rare, painful nerve conditions.

“You have nowhere else to go, and you know that and he knows that,” said Hillary Tullin, 45, who first saw Cruciani at Beth Israel in 2002.

Another said he withheld pain medication when she rebuffed his advances.

The NYPD opened a case on Cruciani in 2013 after a woman said he tried to grope her, but investigators say she became uncooperative and the case was closed.