NEW YORK — Columbia University and a New York hospital have reached a US$750-million settlement with hundreds of women sexually assaulted by a former gynaecologist, a lawyer for the victims said yesterday.

Robert Hadden, described by prosecutors as a “predator in a white coat,” is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted last year of sexual abuse.

Hadden was accused of abusing scores of women between the early 1990s and 2012, including Evelyn Yang, whose husband Andrew Yang ran for president in 2020 as a Democratic Party outsider.

Attorney Anthony DiPietro, who represented some of Hadden’s victims, said the US$750 million (RM 3.17 billion) settlement with Columbia and New York — Presbyterian Hospital involves 576 of the doctor’s former patients.