Former Northwell urologist Darius Paduch, convicted of sexually abusing patients, is demanding a retrial

Darius Paduch, the former Long Island urologist who was convicted in Manhattan federal court earlier this month of sexually abusing seven male patients, deserves a new trial, his lawyers argue in recent court filings, because he should be charged on a state, not federal, offense.

“Dr. Paduch now faces a minimum sentence of 10 years and likely much more,” defense attorney Michael Baldassare wrote in his motion in Manhattan federal court. “All because, in order to trigger federal jurisdiction, the government presented evidence that someone other than Dr. Paduch drove to New York from another state and sent an email/used a phone.”

A jury in federal court in Manhattan convicted the doctor, who worked for 15 years at Weill-Cornell Medical Center and Northwell Health in Long Island, on May 8 after hearing testimony from several victims and medical experts in a two-week trial.

The 56-year-old doctor who specializes in Kleinfelter syndrome, a birth defect in which patients have an extra X chromosome that makes them impotent, was accused of luring young men, including five minors, across state lines for treatment. Once they were his patients, according to testimony during the trial, he groomed them to reduce their inhibitions and then touched them sexually in the hospital’s examining rooms.

“What the defendant did was not sexual medicine,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jun Xiang during the trial’s opening statements. “It was sexual abuse.”

A 25-year-old New Jersey man whom Paduch treated for erectile dysfunction testified that the doctor masturbated him three times, beginning when he was a minor.

The mother of a patient from Maryland said her son had changed since he began seeing Paduch; he had become more withdrawn and unhappy.

Hundreds of former patients have filed multiple lawsuits against the doctor, as well as Weill-Cornell and Northwell, claiming they too were sexually harassed. Paduch lived in North Bergen, New Jersey.

During the trial, Michael Baldassare, Paduch’s New Jersey-based defense attorney, described the criminal case as a chase for money.

“What these former patients will say on the witness stand is exactly what they say in the lawsuits – for the money,” he said during his opening statements.

Baldassare announced he would appeal the decision, but instead on May 23 he asked the judge to overturn the conviction, arguing that the doctor should not have been charged with a federal crime.

“Upholding this conviction would be a blatant injustice,” he said in court documents.

The federal prosecutors rejected the request for a retrial on the grounds that the defense’s arguments were not supported by case law.

“The defense’s claim to a fair trial appears to be based on the assertion that federal law should not punish criminal conduct more severely than state law,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marguerite Colson wrote in her response. “There is no evidence to support this assertion.”

The prosecutor added that the evidence at trial proved Paduch’s guilt and the jury agreed.

“The defendant is an unrepentant sex offender who has abused countless children over the years.” “He was convicted after a trial that complied in every respect with the law and due process.”

guilty of sexually abusing five minors and two adults after, according to prosecutors, he exploited his status as a renowned urologist to convince his victims that his actions amounted to medical treatment.

The doctor was found guilty of six counts of inducing people to travel for the purpose of illicit sexual acts and five counts of inducing minors to engage in sexual acts. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The defense attorney’s motion is awaiting the judge’s decision as to whether the motion can be granted or denied.