By The Diary
29 Aug 2024, 01:05 AM EDT
Paul Giacopelli has lost his license as a doctor in New York after pleading guilty to drugging and sexually assaulting his family’s nanny while she slept in his home.
The 60-year-old anesthesiologist pleaded guilty Wednesday before Judge Anthony Molé after being indicted by a grand jury in March in Putnam County. Defense attorney Steven Gaitman said his client “has taken responsibility for his crimes and is now focused on caring for his family,” he said. New York Post.
According to court documents, the unidentified victim worked as a child care worker for Giacopelli at his home. She told investigators that on four occasions in late 2023, she fell asleep, woke up with a rag over her face, smelled chemicals and passed out.
The woman set up a hidden camera to record her attacker on December 29, 2023. After feeling a rag on her face and passing out, she woke up and saw the contents of the camera. She took the videos to police and Giacopelli was brought before the Putnam County Sheriff for questioning.
Recorded videos showed Giacopelli assaulting the victim, prosecutors said. Keith Simone, a sheriff’s investigator, told the grand jury that the doctor confessed to filling a rag with sevoflurane, an anesthetic agent, and taping the woman’s mouth and nose to render her unconscious and said he had a “chloroform fetish.”
The doctor also told investigators that the victim was an easy target because she was a “deep sleeper,” and admitted to bringing medications home from the hospital, Simone testified.
Authorities found fentanyl and other drugs in the home. The state Board of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) banned Giacopelli from practicing medicine following his arrest. Following his plea agreement, he now faces four years in state prison when he is sentenced on Nov. 20.
In a similar case in May, Dr. Darius A. Paduch, a longtime urologist in New York, was found guilty by a jury in federal court in Manhattan on all 11 counts of abusing seven male patients, including four children.
A year ago, Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng was charged in Queens with drugging and sexually assaulting several women, including his own patients and others he contacted online, and recording the attacks.
In July 2023, Robert Hadden, a former gynecologist at Columbia University in New York, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty on federal charges of sexually abusing patients. In October 2022, nearly 150 women who alleged sexual abuse or misconduct by former gynecologist Hadden reached a $165 million settlement with the hospital system that employed him, Columbia University announced.
In another similar case, in August 2022, Argentine-born doctor Ricardo Cruciani committed suicide in New York’s Rikers jail. He had been accused of sexually abusing several patients in New York, Jersey and Pennsylvania.
If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being abused, especially if you are a minor or an elderly person:
Seek help
- Call 911, 988 or (800)-942-6906.
- Text “WELL” to 65173.
- Check information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/ and www.988lineadevida.org