After Years of Sexual Abuse Allegations, How Did This Doctor Keep Working?

Hospital staff members looked the other way while Ricardo Cruciani addicted vulnerable women to pain medications and assaulted them, according to a new lawsuit.

All Tanisha Johnson wanted was for the pain to go away.

Doctors had offered little hope for her intractable migraines. But at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, Ricardo Cruciani, who had a reputation as a brilliant pain physician, was warm and charming and prescribed powerful opioids, Ms. Johnson recalled in an interview.

When he put his arm around her, she thought, “Finally, a doctor who cares.”