Former patients of a doctor accused of molesting children at Rockefeller University Hospital for decades are demanding to know what happened to photos they say the physician took while the abuse was occurring.
The physician, Reginald Archibald, worked at the New York City hospital from 1948 to 1982 as an endocrinologist who specialized in childhood growth. Former patients have said that in addition to molesting them, he would photograph them naked for what he said was scientific research. Archibald died in 2007.
The former patients and their attorneys held a news conference Tuesday in front of the hospital to demand more information about the whereabouts of the photos. The group says that if the hospital cannot say where the photos are, then it should ask the state attorney general to begin its own investigation into the records.
Questions about the whereabouts of the photos continues to haunt many of the former patients, according to Michael Pfau, an attorney with the Seattle-based firm of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala, who is representing about 100 former patients.
The thought that the photos are now circulating as child pornography compounds his clients’ pain and fear, Pfau said.
“Finding these photos is critical for our clients,” he said. “Hopefully the hospital can do the right thing and accelerate the investigation.”