Maryland Medical Malpractice Lawyer BlogToday, lawyers for victims of former Johns Hopkins obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Nikita Levy announced that a class action has been conditionally certified to resolve the victims’ claims. As many will recall, this past February, patients of Dr. Nikita Levy learned through the media that Dr. Levy had admitted to filming patients during examinations. A subsequent search of his home by police revealed “computer servers” that contained photographs and videos of his patients. Within days, before he could be brought to justice, Dr. Levy took his own life.
Articles Posted in Dr. Nikita Levy and Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Hurdles Facing Law Enforcement and the Steps Officers Will Take to Investigate, Collect Electronic Evidence and Identify Victims of Dr. Nikita Levy’s Patient Privacy Invasion
This past week, Marylanders were stunned and sickened by news that Johns Hopkins’ gynecologist, Dr. Nikita Levy, allegedly used still cameras and video recording devices to capture surreptitiously his gynecological examinations of potentially hundreds of his patients, and that he allegedly collected massive amounts of those images and videos on multiple media storage devices (computers, thumb drives, etc.). What Dr. Levy did with these images is not yet clear. Local, state and federal law enforcement have begun a large-scale cooperative investigation, and, according to reports, officers have searched Dr. Levy’s home and office, seizing multiple media storage devices pursuant to search warrants issued by Baltimore County and Baltimore City Judges. But in the Dr. Levy case, which involves electronic surveillance and electronic privacy crimes, potential child pornography, voyeurism, and invasion of the privacy of hundreds and hundreds of women, law enforcement faces obstacles far more complex than a physician sexually assaulting one or more patients.
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Hundreds of women—Their Privacy Invaded in Their Most Vulnerable Moment—on the Gynecological Exam Table
As news continues to unfold about the now-dead Dr. Levy’s alleged use of still cameras and video recording devices to capture surreptitiously his gynecological examinations of potentially hundreds of his patients, the entire Baltimore and Maryland community is reacting to and struggling to understand how an invasion of privacy of this magnitude occurred. In a nutshell:
• Women everywhere are thinking hard about their privacy-and cringing as they visualize what happens when they hop on a gynecological examination table and reveal their most intimate body parts to a medical care provider;
• If interviews with dozens of Dr. Levy’s patients can be taken as representative of the whole, the hundreds and hundreds of women examined by Dr. Levy are experiencing the trauma commonly associated with such an abusive invasion of their sexual privacy and are experiencing emotional distress as they imagine what pictures and videos might exist and whether those videos and images are floating about on the Internet;
• Horrifically, some of Dr. Levy’s teenage patients may be possible victims, raising the question–was Dr. Levy creating child pornography;
• Federal and state law enforcement are working diligently to investigate, gather, sort, catalog and evaluate massive amounts of electronic evidence and identify victims from that evidence;
• Prosecutors are considering what electronic privacy laws, criminal laws, child pornography laws, and medical privacy laws may come into play;
• Johns Hopkins is reaching out to former patients while trying to conduct its own internal investigation and handling a PR crisis; and • Medical malpractice attorneys have rushed to the courthouse filing suits for millions in damages for medical malpractice when not a single victim has yet to be identified, although make no mistake-victims will be identified when there is this much electronic evidence.
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