A rising New York City doctor was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting numerous women — including a patient — then filming their unconscious bodies as he violated them.
Zhi Alan Cheng, 33, a gastroenterologist at New York Presbyterian Queens, was initially arrested in December after his girlfriend claimed the doctor knocked her unconscious at his Astoria apartment using a surgical mask stuffed with cotton balls soaked in an unknown liquid.
She said she didn’t remember anything when she awoke, but found a video of Cheng sexually assaulting her — along footage of him attacking other women.
In addition to discovering assault videos, prosecutors said numerous drugs including fentanyl, ketamine, LSD, and surgical anesthesia were found in Cheng’s home.
Cheng was arraigned and indicted on three counts of rape, ten counts of predatory sexual assault, seven for sexual abuse, and four counts of assault, prosecutors announced Monday.
His alleged victims included both patients and women he was dating.
At least one of the women alleged she was sexually assaulted by Cheng at the hospital in Queens as a patient when she was 19 years old.
Prosecutors said he gave her a rectal exam that was not necessary for her gall bladder treatment, then injected her with a liquid and raped her, according to The New York Times.
The charges are focused on Cheng’s assaults of six women, but prosecutors said there are likely more victims.
Known victims range in age from 19 to 47 years old.
The videos found in Cheng’s possession suggest he assaulted at least five other women in recent years across New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and even in Thailand.
“For someone to rise to this level where you are drugging and raping a person, that doesn’t happen overnight,” Nicholas Liakas, attorney for the then 19-year-old victim, told NBC New York. “You have essentially a predator in a white coat.”
That woman said she was assaulted by Cheng in June 2021 — more than year before his arrest — and that the hospital investigated her complaints but they went nowhere.
“As caregivers, we are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of our patients – it is a sacred trust,” a spokesperson for the hospital told The Post in a statement.
“The crimes committed by this individual are heinous, despicable, and a fundamental betrayal of our mission and our patients’ trust. We are appalled and deeply saddened by what these victims and their families have endured.”
A representative said the hospital has stringent patient safety policies and procedures in place, and that it was working to identify any weaknesses.
The hospital did not comment on the allegation that complaints about Cheng were not properly addressed when they first arose.
Cheng pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and is being held without bond on Rikers Island.
He earned his medical license in June 2020, after completing his residency at San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center and earning his degree at Albany Medical College.
