Baltimore: A “rogue” gynecologist’s secret use of tiny cameras to record hundreds of videos and photos of his patients’ sex organs has led to a $190 million settlement with some 8,000 women and girls, lawyers said Monday.
Dr Nikita Levy was fired after 25 years with the Johns Hopkins Health System in Baltimore in February 2013 after a female co-worker alerted authorities about a pen-like camera he wore around his neck. He committed suicide days later, as a federal investigation led to roughly 1,200 videos and 140 images stored on computers in his home.
Levy, 54, had worked at the East Baltimore Medical Centre, a Johns Hopkins community clinic, for 25 years before he was fired in February of 2013 after admitting to the misconduct and surrendering his devices to authorities. The settlement all but closes a case attorneys for both Johns Hopkins and Levy’s former patients say traumatised thousands of women who, according to the women’s lead attorney, Jonathan Schochor, are still — a year and a half later — “extraordinarilyupset.”
“They are in fear, dismayed, angry, and anxious over a breach of faith, a breach of trust, a betrayal on the part of the medical system,” Schochor said during a news conference Monday. “Many of our clients still feel betrayed, and still feel the breach of trust they have experienced, and they have fallen out of the sytem.”
The preliminary settlement is one of the largest on record in the U.S. involving sexual misconduct by a physician. Hopkins said insurance will cover the settlement, which “properly balances the concerns of thousands of plaintiffs with obligations the health system has to provide ongoing and superior care.”
Hopkins’ attorney Donald DeVreis on Monday said the hospital was unaware of Levy’s “horrible conduct,” and that he had become a “rogue employee” when he began recording patients.
“He was cold, and I was kind of scared of him,” James said. “His bedside manner — he didn’t have any. But all my doctors were at Hopkins.
