New York pediatrician accused of sex abuse ordered to pay $1.6 billion to 104 women, including a priest in Las Vegas

Starting in the 1980s, New York law enforcement and health officials fielded sexual abuse complaints from the young patients of a respected pediatrician who ran his practice out of a basement office in his home on Long Island.

But Stuart Copperman was never charged with any crime, and it was only as he approached retirement in 2000, at the age of 65, that he was stripped of his medical license over the complaints.

Now, 25 years later, more than 100 of his former patients have some vindication in their yearslong fight: a court has ordered him to pay a total of $1.6 billion.