By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY MAG COURT EXCLUSIVE, Oct 20 – A former pain management doctor who has been indicted for sexually abusing female patients in three states for fifteen years was offered bail conditions to be released on the evening of October 20. Inner City Press was there.
Mid-day it was announced that "Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that RICARDO CRUCIANI was arrested this morning and charged in connection with his sexual abuse of numerous pain management patients over the course of over 15 years. The Indictment unsealed today alleges that from at least in or about 2002 up to and including at least in or about 2017, CRUCIANI enticed and induced multiple victims to travel to his medical offices in New York, New York, Hopewell, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to subject them to unlawful sexual abuse. CRUCIANI was arrested this morning and is expected to be presented later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger in Manhattan federal court."
Inner City Press went to the SDNY Magistrates Court but was initially barred from entering. The overflow room, Courtroom 15A, was locked, and there was no listen-only call-in line.
After managing to enter to ask, What about the press, a back bench spot was offered, along with a pointed question about the Press' authorized cell phone: "Is that a recording device?"
After a case in which Magistrate Judge Lehrburger granted the US Attorney's Office's request to detain in the MDC jail in Brooklyn until trial an asthmatic man from Burkina Faso, employed in food delivery, for enticing two 14-year old girls to have sex, Cruciani was brought in.
Cruciani wore a sweater and blew a kiss to a woman in the gallery, where Inner City Press was the only media. Just then Inner City Press was told, as it tried to inform another reporter that the long-delayed presentment of Cruciani had begun, it was told, They don't want you using your phone while they're talking.
The Assistant US Attorney said that with Cruciani's retained (self-paid) lawyer a bail package had been agreed to: a $2 million personal recognisance bond signed by three financially responsible people and secured by properties in Winwood, Pennsylvania and Jersey City, New Jersey. Cruciani worked at Mount Sinai. There is a petition online here.
The disparity with the Burkinabe food deliveryman, and the initially barring of the Press, were not explained. (To be fair, the SDNY is generally open, see for example orders by Judges Jed S. Rakoff here and Jesse M. Furman on Avenatti, here).
This case is US v. Cruciani, 21-cr-636 (Cronan / Lehrburger)
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