A woman who was sexually assaulted by a New York neurologist while he was treating her said she was relieved when he was put in jail for assaulting six more women.
Hillary Tullin spoke out after Ricardo Cruciani, 68, was found guilty of 12 crimes, including rape and sexual assault, on Friday. Even though he was likely to spend the rest of his life in prison, he found out this morning that the doctor had died.
After his first arrest in Pennsylvania in 2017, Mr. Cruciani did not go to jail because he made a deal with Philadelphia prosecutors to give up his license to practice medicine. The next year, Ricardo was charged with a crime in Manhattan.
The pandemic meant that his trial had to be put off, and it didn’t start until late June of this year. Cruciani was sent to Rikers Island to wait until he got his sentence. Mr. Cruciani was supposed to be sentenced on September 14, and he could get a life sentence. He was also charged with similar crimes at the federal and state levels in New Jersey and Manhattan.
What’s up with Hillary Tullin? Dr. Ricardo Cruciani’s Patient Responds to the Death of the M.D.
Dr. Ricardo Cruciani has hurt a lot of people, and Hillary Tullin is one of them. After the doctor was caught and given a sentence, Tullin said she was relieved and is now living a quiet life. She told the New York Times that she was overjoyed to finally know that she might be able to sleep at night now that she knew this man would never hurt anyone else again.
Hillary said that when she heard he had died, she felt bad for Mr. Cruciani’s kids and for all the people who had been hurt by him but would never get to face him. “In the end, he realized he couldn’t get out,” she said. “The jury agreed with us. It happened. He was going to jail for the rest of his life.”
Prosecutors said that Mr. Cruciani, who was once known as a born and brilliant doctor with a special talent for treating chronic pain, had treated many women badly in a pattern that he had talked about during his trial in the New York State Supreme Court.
The prosecution says that at first, Mr. Cruciani hugged his patients too hard or ran his fingers through their hair. His actions got more aggressive over time, and he would eventually touch women without their permission and force them to do sexual acts or other sexual acts. Some women said in court papers that he would abuse them and get them hooked on painkillers.
Cause of Dr. Ricardo Cruciani’s Death
Documents that The New York Times got show that Ricardo Cruciani, a 68-year-old neurologist, was found sitting in the shower area of the prison on Monday morning with a sheet around his neck. In the end, the medical staff came to see him.
The records show that he died about an hour before he was found. Mr. Crucuani is the 12th person who has died in or soon after getting out of a city jail this year.
About two weeks before he died, a jury found him guilty on 12 counts of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and predatory assault related to the care he gave to six patients in 2012.
The Department of Corrections did not immediately answer his lawyer’s and the judge in charge of his trial’s questions about Mr. Cruciani’s death and whether he was on suicide watch.
Mr. Sosinski said that after the judge granted Mr. Cruciani’s request in court, he was put in protective custody and watched for signs of suicide. During this time, Mr. Cruciani was being watched all the time, even when he went to the bathroom.
Age and photos from Instagram of Hillary Tullin
One of the first people Dr. Cruciani hurt was Hillary Tullin. The victim hasn’t said how old she is or what she does on social media, but she looks to be in her mid-30s. She used to work for ABC and was attacked after going to get help for long-term pain.
As Tullin told a Beth Israel psychologist, the lawsuit says that Cruciani grabbed her face and stuck his tongue down her throat. The charge was not reported by the psychologist.
According to reports, Cruciani gave his patients high doses of opioids on purpose to make them more dependent on him. This left his patients with sexual trauma and crippling opioid addictions.