A rising New York City doctor, Zhi Alan Cheng, faced arraignment on Monday for disturbing sex crime charges including drugging and raping patients while filming the process. Cheng, a gastroenterologist at New York Presbyterian Queens, pled not guilty to charges of sexually abusing three of his patients at the hospital, as well as allegedly raping three other women inside his Astoria apartment in Queens.
According to prosecutors, Cheng was arraigned and indicted on over 20 charges – three counts of rape, 10 counts of predatory sexual assault, seven for sexual abuse, and four counts of assault. One victim alleged Cheng sexually assaulted her at the hospital when she was just 19 years old. The New York Times reported prosecutors alleged Cheng gave the victim a rectal exam that was not necessary for her gallbladder treatment, then injected her with a liquid and raped her.
According to a new indictment, investigators searched through Cheng’s home and uncovered video evidence of the doctor abusing women inside his home and workplace. Some footage showed Cheng groping three hospital patients at different times – all who appeared unconscious during the abuse. According to court documents, investigators recovered liquid anesthesia from Cheng’s home, alongside recreational narcotics including cocaine and ecstasy.
“For someone to rise to this level where you are drugging and raping a person, that doesn’t happen overnight,” Nicholas Liakas, attorney for the then 19-year-old victim, told NBC New York. “You have essentially a predator in a white coat.”
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This arrest comes shortly after a gynecologist in the same hospital system, Robert Hadden, was accused of abusing 245 women over the span of two decades.
In a statement, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said the evidence pointed to “a serial rapist, someone willing to not only violate his sacred professional oath and patients’ trust, but every standard of human decency.”
Cheng’s alleged abuse took place over a much shorter period – between 2021 and 2022. Cheng is currently being held without bond on Rikers Island.
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