Overview
- The Justice Department and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announced a voluntary compliance agreement with Weill Cornell that ends the federal criminal probe and sets enforceable reforms.
- Under the deal Weill Cornell must spend $30 million to create the Institute for Safe Patient Care and Patient Empowerment to spread prevention practices to other providers.
- Prosecutors found that the school’s policies were inadequate and that complaints about former urologist Darius Paduch surfaced as early as 2012 but were not properly escalated or disclosed to a later employer.
- Weill Cornell has paid or agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle civil claims by Paduch’s victims and the government said it will forgo an additional monetary penalty because of those payments.
- The agreement requires Weill Cornell to self-report future criminal sexual-misconduct evidence, keep strengthened chaperone and reporting rules, undergo periodic internal reviews through 2031, and certify compliance every six months, steps intended to improve patient safety and restore trust.