Ex-Rutgers Cancer Doc Admits To Theft, Sentenced To Jail

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — A man who once led the skin cancer treatment program at Rutgers Cancer Institute pleaded guilty to a range of charges, including official misconduct and computer theft. He was sentenced this week to 300 days in the county jail.

Dr. James Goydos, 58, who lives in East Brunswick and was a leading surgeon at the Cancer Institute, was charged in a 160-count indictment in 2019. The indictment charged him with secretly recording as many as 30 women as they used a second-floor bathroom at the Cancer Institute in New Brunswick.

However, those charges have been dropped.

Goydos was also charged with computer theft and burglary. Prosecutors say he broke into the offices of four of his colleagues at the Cancer Institute and hacked into their computers. He stole personal information from them and later tried to impersonate them, prosecutors say. It was all part of an elaborate scheme to defraud the Cancer Institute, prosecutors said in the indictment, but did not elaborate.

Goydos pleaded guilty to second-degree official misconduct, second-degree wrongful possession of an assault rifle, second-degree computer theft, third-degree burglary, third-degree computer theft and fourth-degree identity theft.

He was sentenced this week to four years of probation, with 300 days in the county jail. He will also have to perform community service and pay fines. He was ordered to have no contact with the victims or Rutgers, and to forfeit all future public employment. He will have to turn himself in Sept. 14, when he will begin serving his 300 days in the Middlesex County Jail, according to a spokeswoman for the county prosecutor.

Before he was arrested, Goydos was the chief of melanoma and soft tissue oncology at the Cancer Institute, and also taught Rutgers medical students. He made $437,500 a year. Goydos no longer works for either Rutgers or the Cancer Institute.

He was banned from ever returning to campus, a Rutgers spokeswoman said.

Prosecutors initially alleged that Goydos set up the cameras inside a second-floor women's bathroom at the Cancer Institute and that he recorded women over two years, from April 2016 through March 2018. Approximately 30 women were captured on camera, recorded in various states of undress in the bathroom, say police.

However, all of those charges were dismissed at his sentencing this week as part of the terms of Goydos' plea agreement.

A national leader in the field of melanoma treatment and research

Goydos was one of the most highly regarded physicians on staff at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Rutgers Cancer Institute is one of the leading cancer treatment centers in America, particularly in the treatment of melanoma.

People with melanoma came from all over the United States, seeking treatment from Goydos and his team. Some of his work in the field is currently being developed into tumor-fighting cancer drugs to treat skin cancer, breast and prostate cancer.

Goydos not only ran the melanoma treatment program, he was also one of the Cancer Institute's founding faculty members. In 1995, he led the first clinical melanoma trial in the state of New Jersey.

You can hear him lecturing on his research below.

Police had been investigating Goydos for more than a year

As Patch reported at the time, detectives had been investigating Goydos for more than a year before his arrest, once they were first tipped off by Rutgers officials to his alleged activities.

On March 30, 2018, detectives with the county prosecutor's office executed a search warrant at his East Brunswick home and said they found an unlicensed gun in his basement.

Police say they also found wiretapping materials, including a Sony digital voice recorder and a USB drive recorder that could be used to surreptitiously record someone talking.

He pleaded guilty to having the unlicensed gun, which he said was a gift.

Goydos was first placed on paid leave after he was arrested on the gun charge, a Rutgers spokeswoman said. He then quit after he was banned from campus.

"When the university discovered Dr. Goydos' activities, we immediately referred the matter to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office and cooperated fully with their investigation," said Dory Devlin, the Rutgers spokeswoman. "Dr. Goydos was initially banned from the university and subsequently resigned."

After he was arrested last year, Goydos filed a civil lawsuit against Rutgers and the Cancer Institute, saying he was framed.

The lawsuit, which you can find here, was filed by Goydos and his wife, Maria Martins, who is also a physician. In it, Goydos describes an elaborate conspiracy against him. He says it was orchestrated to punish him after he initiated a dispute in 2014 over cancer grant funding from the National Cancer Institute.

He also did not deny that cameras had been set up in the women's bathroom, but said that someone else put them there, not him.

One of the women filmed brings her own class-action lawsuit against Goydos, Cancer Institute

The women are identified in the indictment as "Jane Doe 1-26," but the county prosecutor says a total of 30 women were captured on camera. The women were recorded in various states of undress in the bathroom.

One of those women who was filmed, "Jane Doe," has also now brought her own lawsuit against the Cancer Institute and Goydos. She is being represented by Olimpio Lee Squitieri, of Squitieri & Fearon in the class-action lawsuit, MyCentralJersey reported.

Prior Patch reporting on Dr. James Goydos:

Rutgers Professor Charged With Illegally Owning Assault Weapon (May 2018)

Top Rutgers Cancer Surgeon Charged With Filming Women In Bathroom (February 2019)

Rutgers Doc Accused Of Filming Women Says He Was Set Up (April 2019)