A New York City gastroenterologist affiliated with NY Presbyterian Hospital in Queens has been criminally charged with three counts of rape, 10 counts of predatory sexual assault, seven for sexual abuse, and four counts of assault. Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng, 33, was arraigned and indicted yesterday according to prosecutors handling the case.
Cheng was originally arrested in December 2022 after his then girlfriend told authorities the doctor had knocked her unconscious with an unknown liquid and then sexually assaulted her. The girlfriend became aware of what happened to her after she found incriminating videotapes of the assault as well as other similar sexual assaults.
In addition to discovering assault videos, prosecutors said numerous drugs including fentanyl, ketamine, LSD, and surgical anesthesia were found in Cheng’s home.
Cheng’s victims include both patients and women he had been dating and range in age from 19 to 47 years of age. The videos found in Cheng’s possession suggest he assaulted at least five other women in recent years across New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and even in Thailand.
Cheng is not the first doctor recently arrested for sexual assault. Darius Paduch, a New York City urologist who had worked at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Northwell Health, now faces new federal criminal charges involving the sexual abuse of multiple patients under the guise of medical treatment.
If you were a patient of Dr. Paduch or Dr. Cheng and believe they may have acted inappropriately with you or a loved one, contact Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman LLP’s experienced sexual abuse lawyer, Thomas P. Giuffra today. Thomas has more than 20 years of experience handling these difficult abuse cases.
