What happened to Zhi Alan Cheng? The rising Queens Queens doctor charged with drugging and raping numerous women while filming assaults in his home and at the hospital.
A filed civil lawsuit alleged Zhi Alan Cheng, a gastroenterologist who previously practised at New York Presbyterian Flushing location, drugged and s*xually assaulted a then 19-year-old patient in June 2021.
The lawsuit filed against New York Presbyterian on June 5 said the hospital failed to follow due process against Cheng despite the victim reporting the crime.
On August 2023, he was charged for his accused crimes. Below are everything to know about him; what he did and where he is now?
Who is Zhi Alan Cheng?
Zhi Alan Cheng is a medical doctor with his speciality in gastroenterology. Per his Linkedin, he described himself as an Internal Medicine Specialist in Flushing.
Working at the New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital, he was an expertise in the disorders and diseases that affect the digestive system — which includes the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum and anus) as well as the pancreas, liver, bile ducts and gallbladder.
Per the court document, Dr Zhi Alan Cheng was employed by New York-Presbyterian between July 2020 and December 2022. Cheng was fired in December 2022 after he was arrested on assault charges.
He was born between 1989 and 1990 as he is currently 33 years old.
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 Of Union University in 2016.
He gained worldwide fame after it was alleged he drugged and raped his patients at his hospital and house.
Cheng was reportedly taken into custody after a woman with whom the suspect had an intimate relationship found videos of him sedating and s*xually assaulting her on multiple occasions.
What did Zhi Alan Cheng do?
Zhi Alan Cheng was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting numerous women — including a patient — then filming their unconscious bodies as he violated them.
Zhi Alan Cheng 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.
Where is Zhi Alan Cheng now?
According to records cited by NBC, Zhi Alan Cheng was suspended from practising medicine on April 7, 2023, nearly four months he was arrested and charged with r*pe.
Zhi Alan Cheng was arraigned Monday on charges of sexually abusing three of his patients at New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital and raping three other women inside his apartment in Queens, New York.
Cheng pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and is being held without bond on Rikers Island.
ncG1vNJzZmismJqxqr%2FToqVnm5%2BifHN8kWxmaXBfZYVww8eoZKKrXZm%2FbsbHomSapJGjeqS0xKeeZq%2BYlsFusMidZKGdXZm8bsDOZp%2Biq12lrrW1xKerrGWknbJuvdSenKerXZm8pMDOq2SsrJ%2Bnxm7DyKSgqZ2Unq5ursionquZoJ3GcA%3D%3D