Ricardo Cruciani, a former pain management physician, already faces state charges. Each of the federal charges carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges on Wednesday against Ricardo Cruciani, a former pain management physician, accusing him of enticing women to cross state lines to engage in illegal sexual activity over the course of 15 years. Mr. Cruciani,63, who has been accused of overmedicating and sexually assaulting numerous female patients, also faces state criminal charges in New York and New Jersey and is the target of a number of civil lawsuits seeking damages. He surrendered his medical license in 2017 and had to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to sexual assaults in Pennsylvania, but he has not served any time in prison. Each of the five new federal counts against him carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The indictment also says that assets derived from committing the offenses could be seized by the government. Mr. Cruciani, who lives in Wynnewood, Pa., was arrested in Pocono Pines, Pa., on Wednesday morning. His case will be heard by Judge John P. Cronan of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday. Efforts to reach his lawyer for comment were unsuccessful. “Doctors like the defendant take an oath to do no harm,” Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District, said in announcing the charges. “It is difficult to imagine conduct more anathema to that oath than exploiting patients’ vulnerability in order to sexually abuse them.” Several of Mr. Cruciani’s former patients said that they felt gratified to see that the federal government had filed charges against him and that they hoped he would be held accountable.
