Fearless abuse vic No hesitation going public in suit over perv doc
Child abuse survivor Ron Samuel, one of 80 accusers of reputed serial sexual predator Dr. Reginald Archibald in the latest Child Victims Act lawsuit against Rockefeller University, wanted his name in the court papers.
“It’s important to come forward and discuss what happened, and protect other people,” he told the Daily News. “I have no problem exposing my name. I don’t want to be shut down in any manner. I wanted to come forward with the full story.”
The latest sordid tales of Archibald’s decades of sick sexual behavior with children were contained in a 336-page Manhattan Supreme Court filing that laid out in brutal detail the doctor’s mistreatment of his underage patients while working at the university from the 1940s into the 1980s.
Attorney Jennifer Freeman, of the Marsh Law Firm, noted most of the plaintiffs joined Samuel in going public with the lawsuit filed Wednesday.
“Our plaintiffs felt it was so important to bring this forward and to use their own names, to put the responsibility for these cases where it belonged with their names on it,” she said. “They were not afraid to speak up.”
An email for comment to Rockefeller University — which has issued a public apology for the Archibald abuse cases — was not returned. Archibald, once an esteemed pediatric endocrinologist, died in 2007.
The lawsuit offered a graphic recounting of the allegations against Archibald, including his propensity for taking photos of his young patients’ genitals and masturbating the boys to ejaculation. He was also investigated by a Manhattan grand jury in 1961 after a complaint about his procedures.
“Dr. Archibald used his position as an agent of defendant Rockefeller to sexually abuse many children, using its medical facilities, locations, and equipment,” the lawsuit alleged. “… Dr. Archibald would instruct many of defendant Rockefeller’s minor patients to come into an examination room alone, direct them to undress [and] insist they remain naked throughout his ‘examination.’ ”
Samuel was a patient of Archibald for 13 years, visiting four times a year beginning at age 5.
“I was alone in a room with this creep and I encountered no end of sexual abuse,” he said. “That spells it out in a nutshell. I was too embarrassed to discuss this with my parents. I thought they would think I wasn’t telling the truth. Over the years I went there, it was only later that I began to question things.”
But Samuel was certain he wanted his name attached to the lawsuit.
“For a long time, I felt in a sense I was no longer alive,” he explained. “Justice should be served. Dr. Archibald was like a Larry Nassar or a Jeffrey Epstein. That should be brought out in a public way.”