Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng entered a plea of not guilty in court last week, and his lawyer Jeffrey Einhorn declined to comment on the case or charges at this time.
A New York City doctor is being called a “serial rapist” who violated “every standard of human decency” by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng, 33, was arraigned on a 50-count superseding indictment in court last week for allegedly raping three women at his apartment and sexually abusing three women at New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital where he had been employed as a gastroenterologist.
Cheng has entered a plea of not guilty on all charges and is being held without bail at Riker's Island.
He had already been arraigned back in December on 11 counts for allegedly raping a woman at his apartment, and the Queens District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau is still working to identify more women that they believe Cheng sexually assaulted, including one who may have been under his care at the hospital according to a spokesperson for the district attorney's office.
The first victim discovered videos of Cheng allegedly raping her and other women at his apartment last year, according to Katz.
In December, the district attorney's office charged Cheng in an 11-count indictment. The state medical board tells Inside Edition Digital that Cheng's license to practice medicine was suspended after that initial indictment.
In each of the seven alleged sexual assaults outlined in the new superseding indictment, Cheng is accused of drugging his victims and then filming the subsequent assault as the women lay unconscious.
These new charges come after a search warrant executed at Cheng’s home led to the seizure of “numerous digital media storage devices containing videos of unconscious female hospital patients, as well as Cheng’s female acquaintances,” says the district attorney’s office.
That search allegedly yielded a number of narcotics including fentanyl, ketamine, cocaine, LSD and MDMA, according to the district attorney's office. Propofol and sevoflurane, which are both often used to sedate patients receiving medical care, were also allegedly found in Cheng’s apartment during that search.
In addition to these criminal charges, the youngest of Cheng's alleged victims is now suing him, his supervisors, and the hospital.
Inside Edition Digital obtained a copy of her complaint alleging that Cheng used a stairwell entrance to avoid detection and then snuck into her room on the pediatrics floor, gave her a painful and unnecessary shot of an unknown drug, and then sexually assaulted her.
That teenage victim also alleges that she informed staff that an Asian man had given her a painful shot and then identified Cheng as that man in front of hospital employees, according to the complaint.
She alleges that the hospital would have easily confirmed this by checking to see which staff had used their card to enter the pediatric wing through the stairwell in her complaint.
Instead, she claims Cheng’s supervisors “recorded and/or conspired to record incorrect, inaccurate, and/or false information in plaintiff’s medical record in order to protect defendant Cheng and the hospital and cast doubt on plaintiff’s recollection of events.”
Cheng is facing multiple sentences of 25 years to life if convicted on these charges, which include:
- 10 counts of predatory sexual assault
- three counts of rape in the first degree
- seven counts of sexual abuse in the first degree
- four counts of assault in the second degree
- three counts of criminal sexual act in the first degree
- 11 counts of unlawful surveillance in the second degree
- eight counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree
- four counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree
“The recovered evidence compiled paints the picture of a sexual predator of the absolute worst kind, a serial rapist, someone willing to not only violate his sacred professional oath and patients’ trust, but every standard of human decency, as well,” says District Attorney Katz. “We will present the facts to a jury and achieve justice for the victims of the horrific assaults captured on video.”
“The crimes committed by this individual are heinous, despicable, and a fundamental betrayal of our mission and our patients’ trust,” a spokesperson for New York-Presbyterian said in a statement sent to Inside Edition Digital. “In December 2022, as soon as the District Attorney made us aware of allegations of sexual abuse against this individual, he was immediately placed off duty, banned from hospital property, and terminated.”
Cheng's attorney Jeffrey Lichtman also released a brief statement over the weekend, which said: “Dr. Cheng has pleaded not guilty to the charges and we intend to fight them.”
