Yale Prof Accused Of Sexually Assaulting 5 Students: Report

NEW HAVEN, CT — A Yale University School of Medicine professor sexually assaulted five students at a research facility in the Caribbean, according to a university internal investigation. The assaults began in 1994 and the university's policies and procedures failed to address the abuse.

Dr. D. Eugene Redmond, Jr., retired in 2018 with disciplinary proceedings pending against him. Redmond was a psychiatry and neurosurgery professor who spent forty-four years with the university.

The extensive investigation conducted by former U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly into the allegations against Redmond included interviews with 110 witnesses, 38 current and former undergraduate students, and 34 professors and administrators.

The report states that a Yale undergraduate filed a formal complaint in March 2018 against Redmond alleging sexual misconduct at Redmond’s research facility in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. A group of Yale students had also made similar complaints against Redmond in 1994.

The report reads: "Based on our investigation, we have concluded that Redmond sexually assaulted five students in St. Kitts while he was a Yale professor. These assaults occurred on five separate occasions, when he initiated and engaged in nonconsensual sexual contact with each student. Each of these incidents occurred in a bedroom that Redmond required each student to share with him and after each of the students had been drinking with Redmond."

The victims include young adult males, one transgender adult, and doctor-patient abuse.

The investigation also found that Redmond performed "medical exams of students that included inappropriate genital and/or rectal exams" and "committed other acts of sexual misconduct involving at least eight other undergraduates or recent graduates and one high school student in St. Kitts, New Haven, and other locations."

The investigative report states that the victims' claims were highly credible. "The strongest corroboration for the assaults is the striking similarity between the students’ accounts of what happened, despite the fact that the incidents occurred years, and, in some cases, decades apart, and the students do not know one another or the nature of their individual accounts. It is also relevant to our findings, as discussed later in this Report, that Redmond tried to obstruct our investigation by encouraging some witnesses not to cooperate with us, to provide false information, or to withhold relevant information."

Redmond declined a request for an interview with investigators, though the report notes that he has generally denied any claims of misconduct.

Yale School of Medicine investigated the 1994 claims against Redmond but the report noted there were flaws with the investigation. Redmond subsequently ended the St. Kitts program only to restart it in 2001.

The investigation found that Yale School of Medicine "failed to implement any meaningful monitoring mechanisms to ensure ongoing oversight of Redmond and student activity at the St. Kitts facility" even after the 1994 investigation.

"Redmond’s false representations to YSM that he had terminated the program created a false sense of confidence that his misconduct had stopped. In fact, at least by 2001, Redmond returned to recruiting students to work with him in St. Kitts, and required some of them to share a bedroom with him. We know of 20 students who worked with Redmond from 2001 to 2017 in St. Kitts. Three of those students were assaulted by Redmond, and several others experienced sexual harassment by him."

The full report has been made available to the public.