A Yale University psychiatry professor sexually assaulted five students at a research facility on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and committed sexual misconduct against at least eight others, according to a former federal prosecutor's report released Tuesday.
Commissioned by Yale, the report by former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly investigated the conduct of Dr. D. Eugene Redmond, who retired last year from the Yale School of Medicine after 44 years, amid disciplinary proceedings.
Redmond has denied the allegations. Messages seeking comment were left with Redmond and his lawyer Tuesday. No criminal charges have been filed.
FILE - In this June 19, 2006 file photo, Yale University researcher Dr. Eugene Redmond walks on the grounds of the biomedical research center, at the site of an old sugar mill, where he spends most summers working, at Bourreu Estate on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts. An investigation has concluded that professor Redmond sexually assaulted five students and committed sexual misconduct against at least eight others. The report by former Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly was released Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019. (AP PhotoBrennan Linsley, File)
Daly concluded Redmond sexually assaulted two students in the early 1990s and three others between 2010 and 2017. She reported the assaults involved nonconsensual touching of male students, including when they were intoxicated.
Redmond also allegedly conducted three medical exams of students in St. Kitts that included inappropriate genital and/or rectal exams, the report said.
Daly further alleged Redmond committed sexual misconduct against at least eight other undergraduates, recent graduates and one high school student in St. Kitts, New Haven and other locations.
The report said Yale officials failed to adequately respond to sexual misconduct complaints against Redmond first brought by students in 1994.
"We found no evidence that any faculty, staff, or administrators at Yale had actual knowledge of Redmond's sexual misconduct before it was reported," the report said. "Nevertheless, it is equally clear that if Yale had implemented a longstanding monitoring program after the 1994 investigation, Redmond's ongoing misconduct might well have been detected and stopped."
In a statement Tuesday, Yale President Peter Salovey called Redmond's alleged actions "reprehensible and antithetical to the educational mission of our university."
"The behaviors in question violate every expectation we have of our faculty, and the trust our students, and society, place in educators," Salovey said. "On behalf of Yale, I am deeply sorry Redmond's behavior was not stopped once and for all after it was first reported."
Salovey said Yale is taking a number of actions in response to the report, including adding oversight to university-related internships and overnight programs. He also said Yale's disciplinary process will be improved.
The allegations arose out of a summer internship program that was run by Redmond at a research facility on St. Kitts, the school has said.
Redmond agreed to end the internship program after the 1994 allegations, which could not be verified, Yale officials said earlier this year.
Redmond subsequently revived that program and two more allegations surfaced, one of which led to disciplinary proceedings last year. The other was brought forward in January, the school said.
Redmond's retirement came after he was found responsible of sexual harassment by Yale's University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct.
In January, Yale announced that it hired Finn Dixon & Herling, the Stamford law firm where Daly works, to investigate Redmond.
Daly said the firm interviewed 110 witnesses, including 38 current and former students, most of whom were Yale undergraduates at the time of the alleged assaults and misconduct. Thirty-four Yale professors and administrators also were interviewed.
Redmond declined the firm's request for an interview, Daly said. Redmond's lawyer said that in order to interview Redmond, the firm would need to disclose the names of the students who made that allegations as well as all the firm's documents relating to its interviews of the students — a request the firm denied, Daly said.
"We found the students' accounts to be highly credible," the report said. "There were no eyewitnesses to the assaults ... but each incident is corroborated, at least in part, by written communications and interviews with family members, friends, or therapists to whom the students reported the incidents."
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that cherry picks weapons of mass destruction from all other weapons that should also be banned.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13 in favor, Russia opposed and China abstaining.
The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”
The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.
The U.S. opposed the amendment, and after the vote Nebenzia addressed the U.S. ambassador saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”
He said much of the U.S. and Japan’s actions become clear “if we recall that the U.S. and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”
Nebenzia accused the U.S. of blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal since 2008 for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.
Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of undermining global treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, irresponsibly invoking “dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” walking away from several of its arms control obligations, and refusing to engage “in substantive discussions around arms control or risk reduction.”
She called Wednesday’s vote “a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”
Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement of the resolution on March 18 followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.
Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.
Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that the world is just beginning to understand “the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space.”
It could destroy “thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend on,” she said.
The defeated draft resolution said “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It would have urged all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.
The draft would have affirmed that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”
The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
The draft resolution emphasized “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”
It reiterated that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.
The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution would have urged the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”
At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.
United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council before voting during a meeting on Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
FILE - U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Tokyo. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday, April 24, 2024, on a resolution announced by Thomas-Greenfield, calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
