A sicko Queens doctor who filmed himself groping sedated patients and raping drugged women he met online was sentenced on Thursday to 24 years in prison — but some of his victims argue the punishment was not grave enough.
Zhi Alan Cheng, 35, a former gastroenterologist at New York-Presbyterian Queens, was sentenced after he was convicted of four counts of first-degree rape and three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, according to a press release from the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
Cheng pleaded guilty to the heinous sex crimes in June. In exchange for the guilty plea, the DA’s office agreed to drop predatory sex assault charges, sparing him a maximum life in prison sentence, according to NBC4.
He was initially charged with over 50 criminal counts related to the sexual abuse, the DA’s office said.
“This tells everyone in Queens and anyone who’s listening, that there’s always a deal to be made in this District Attorney’s office, no matter how good the evidence is,” Nicholas Liakas, an attorney for the sex crime survivors, told reporters outside the courtroom after the sentencing, according to the outlet.
A group of survivors of Cheng’s sex crimes previously slammed the Queen’s DA’s office for the “light” sentencing.
“He is getting off light. He can kind of rebuild his life because he’s fairly young,” one of Cheng’s survivors told NBC4 after his guilty plea in June.
“You have this obligation to victims of crime, and you’re just letting people off lightly like this. Why?” the survivor said.
The sentencing will allow Cheng to get out of prison by the time he is 60 years old, at which point he’ll have to register as a sex offender while also under 10 years of post-release supervision.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz praised the sentence and thanked the survivors for coming forward about Cheng’s depraved acts.
“Zhi Alan Cheng committed a series of heinous acts against women. He did so both as a private citizen, sexually assaulting women who were his intimate partners, and as a doctor, sexually assaulting vulnerable patients who came to the hospital in need of help,” Katz said in a statement.
“As a consequence of his crimes, he will serve over two decades in prison, with 10 years of post-release supervision and must register as a sex offender, likely for the rest of his life,” she said.
“It is most important to express gratitude to the brave survivor who came forward initially to report the defendant’s crimes, and the other victims who helped us to make sure no other women were hurt going forward,” the DA added.
Cheng had worked as a gastroenterologist at New York-Presbyterian Queens until a girlfriend in late 2022 claimed he knocked her unconscious in his Astoria apartment by using a surgical mask stuffed with drug-soaked cotton balls.
The courageous woman contacted prosecutors after discovering videos showing Cheng sexually assaulting her and other women, officials said.
A joint probe by the Queens District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau and New York-Presbyterian led to a warrant search at Cheng’s home, where authorities found several horrifying videos.
The recordings showed Cheng groping sedated women as young as 19 in the hospital, prosecutors said.
Other videos taken in Cheng’s home showed him raping unconscious, apparently drugged women — at least some of whom he had met on online dating sites.
All told, Cheng copped to sexually assaulting seven women.
He also struck an Alford plea — admitting criminal guilt but expressing his innocence — to another count of sexual abuse from accusations related to an eighth woman.
Officials also seized cocaine, fentanyl, ketamine, LSD, and MDMA, in addition to drugs used for sedation such as propofol and sevoflurane, prosecutors said.
Cheng was ordered held without bail, and his ability to practice medicine was suspended by state officials while the case wound through the courts.
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