Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng was arraigned today on an indictment charging him with sexually abusing a patient at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital. Cheng was previously indicted in August 2023, accused of sexually abusing three patients in the hospital and drugging and raping three other women in his Queens home, as well as with filming each of the assaults. He had also been indicted in December 2022 for allegedly raping a female acquaintance in his apartment.

The latest indictment comes after another victim came forward. In all, more than 60 charges have been filed against Cheng. District Attorney Katz urges women who believe they may have been victimized to contact her office’s Special Victims Bureau, at (718) 286-6505, or SpecialVictims@queensda.org.

District Attorney Katz said: “What we have heard from the victims and seen in the videos is the shocking and horrifying exploitation of women at their most vulnerable. Taken together, the evidence details the repeated attacks of a sexual predator who time and again betrayed his sworn professional oath and the trust of women who were unable to defend themselves.”

Cheng, 34, of Broadway in Astoria, was indicted by a grand jury and arraigned today on charges of sexual abuse in the first and second degrees. Judge Ushir Pandit-Durant ordered the defendant to return to court on May 17.

When he was arrested on December 27, 2022, Cheng’s license to practice medicine was suspended by the state. He has been held without bail since then.

He faces multiple 25-years-to-life sentences.

According to the newest charges:

• A 48-year-old woman went to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital in November 2021 with a condition that required a gastrointestinal procedure.
• The victim was sedated during the procedure, after which she awoke to find Dr. Cheng digitally penetrating her.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Brianne Richards, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, is prosecuting the case with Assistant District Attorney Matthew Regan, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Brian C. Hughes, Deputy Bureau Chief, Eric C. Rosenbaum, Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for the Special Prosecutions Division Joyce Smith.