SUIT: DOC DEVIANT
Rockefeller Hosp. knew of sex abuse, did nothing: vic
ALBANY — A prominent doctor molested and sexually abused potentially thousands of his young patients while his research institute employer knew and did nothing, a bombshell lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court Wednesday charges.
The civil suit, brought by a victim of the late doctor was filed against the Rockefeller University Hospital, which is described in the papers as a “world-renowned research institute.”
The lawsuit filed by Jeffrey Poppel, a former patient, alleges that during his four decades as a pediatric endocrinologist at Rockefeller, Dr. Reginald Archibald had more than 9,000 patients, many of whom were boys who were unable to grow normally.
Archibald studied childhood growth and maturation, focusing on children who were not growing at normal rates.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Poppel and a “class of similarly situated individuals who have been harmed by sexual abuse” perpetrated over the span of 40 years by Archibald and “by the transmission and receipt of a highly offensive, and extreme and outrageous correspondence directed at them for no purpose other than to benefit the entity that for four decades employed their perpetrator.”
The suit is seeking more than $5 million in damages from the hospital, which had no comment on the lawsuit.
“Throughout his career, Archibald molested and sexually abused at least hundreds, but more likely thousands of patients,” the lawsuit alleges. “He did so using his office and examination rooms” at the hospital.
The filing claims Archibald also took nude and pornographic film and Poloroid photos of his victims that
were kept at the facility and that Rockefeller staff members “were aware of the photographs and his conduct for many years, and remained silent.”
The children Archibald treated were “especially vulnerable. They were too young to know the difference between a legitimate medical practice and molestation,” tthe suit says.
According to the lawsuit, Archibald, who died in 2007, required his patients to remove all their clothes during appointments, measured his male victims’ penises, and would masturbate them or asked them to do it themselves.
“Archibald stole something innocent, and sensitive, and sacred from every child he abused . . . . Rockefeller investigated and found credible allegations of sexual abuse by Archibald at the latest in 2004, when Archibald was still living.”
Poppel, now 54, was born with short arms, club forearms, small hands, four fingers on each hand, no kneecaps, and an eye disorder, according to the lawsuit.
As a child, he was extremely short for his age.
Poppel was a patient at Rockefeller University from 1975 to 1980.
“Mr. Poppel had several appointments with Archibald at Rockefeller University Hospital,” lawyer Corey Stern, of Levy Konigsberg, wrote in the suit. “Several involved traumatic sexual abuse.”
His mother had wanted to accompany him to the exam room, but Archibald wouldn’t permit it. He assured her a nurse would be there, though that was not the case.