A Long Island judge has ordered former pediatrician Stuart Copperman to pay $22 million in compensatory and punitive damages to a 42-year-old woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her from when she was a toddler until she turned 18.
The ruling was the first against Mr Copperman, who was accused of abusing dozens of patients over several decades. More than a hundred other civil claims have been filed against him by former patients.
Mr. Copperman has not defended the case and has no attorney. He did not respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe AR I, filed suit under the New York State Child Victims Act, which gives adult victims of child sexual abuse the right to sue their abusers until their 55th birthday. Prosecutors can file criminal charges on behalf of the victims until their 28th birthday.
In addition, the law provided for a one-year period after its enactment, allowing people at any age to bring a civil suit, regardless of when the alleged abuse took place.
Many lawyers are hesitant to take such cases against individuals, because the chance of recovering the damage is small. Jane Doe AR I was represented by attorneys Michael Della, of Long Island, and Kristen Gibbons Feden, who prosecuted Bill Cosby and now works for a Philadelphia firm.
In the decision issued late last week, Nassau County Judge Leonard D. Steinman said the years of abuse had caused the woman to develop severe and long-lasting mental disorders and to suffer emotional distress, anxiety and depression that lasted until today. continue to this day.
“Plaintiff has been unable to participate in a normal, healthy romantic relationship — she has never been in a relationship — and while Plaintiff is a highly educated and intelligent woman, she cannot continue to work continuously” and is receiving disability benefits, she wrote. the judge.
“Copperman’s abuse has deprived Plaintiff of a normal, healthy and happy life,” the judge wrote in his verdict. “The psychological scars from the abuse are permanent.”
Jane Doe AR I didn’t speak until she was five years old and developed dissociative identity disorder as a result of the trauma, Ms Gibbons Feden said.
“What’s really important to get across is that sexual trauma doesn’t just go away,” Ms Gibbons Feden said in an interview. “It has a lifelong impact on a person.”
For decades, Mr. Copperman had a thriving children’s practice in Merrick, NY. He had an excellent reputation as a doctor who made house calls and would respond in the event of a medical emergency. He was much in demand as an expert speaker.
Mr. Copperman often saw young female patients alone in the examination room and asked the parents who accompanied them to wait in the reception room, under the guise of giving the girls a chance to speak freely.
His status in the community was such that many parents simply did not believe them when children and teens complained of abuse.
Although the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct received a steady stream of sexual abuse complaints about Mr. Copperman for nearly two decades, it was not until December 2000 that he was stripped of his medical license. By then he was 65 years old and ready to retire. .
Officials could have acted much sooner: Two young women testified to a medical disciplinary panel about their abuse in 1985, but the panelists—dominated by doctors—didn’t believe them.
Prosecutors in Nassau County, where Mr. Copperman was president of the local pediatric association, have not filed criminal charges.
According to the verdict handed down last week, Mr Copperman assaulted Jane Doe AR I on every examination, digitally penetrating her vagina and anus and stimulating her clitoris, even when she visited him because of a sore throat or cough.
Mr Copperman insisted on ‘examining’ her, even when an appointment had been made for her sister, whom she accompanied.
The prosecutor was confused and dissatisfied with the doctor’s actions, but did not fully realize that the behavior constituted abuse until she was older and was no longer his patient, the ruling said.
She is still traumatized by the ongoing abuse, which caused emotional distress as well as physical symptoms, loss of self-esteem, shame and humiliation, the judge said.
“We would have loved to cross-examine him and really put him to the test,” Mr Della said. But he added: “This is the closest thing to justice we could have gotten.”
“We absolutely intend to try and collect any assets he may or may not have.”
