A former emergency room physician who worked at Cedars Sinai medical center in Los Angeles has been charged with sexually assaulting four women, five months after the NBC4 I-Team first reported the doctor had been arrested and LAPD detectives were investigating numerous allegations of assaults.
Dr. Anshul M. Gandhi, 34, was initially booked in January after a 31-year-old woman told police she was assaulted in December, 2019. Gandhi posted bail and hired defense attorney Michael Kraut, who said the arrest was baseless and unjust.
He said Monday there was little evidence to back up the case.
“These other individuals, knowing he was fairly wealthy, came out of the woodwork to accuse him,” Kraut said. “They’re now saying they were victims with no corroboration: there’s no forensics, no audio, no video, no texts, nothing to confirm their statements.”
The LA County District Attorney’s Office said Monday it charged Gandhi with a felony count of sexual battery for the alleged December, 2019 attack, as well as three additional felony sexual battery charges for alleged attacks on three other women in October, 2016, December, 2016 and July, 2018.
Gandhi pleaded not guilty Monday and was ordered to return to court in September for a preliminary hearing.
At the time of the alleged incidents Gandhi was working as a doctor at the Cedars Sinai emergency department.
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Several hospital employees, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC4’s I-Team they had reported several incidents to hospital management and encouraged women who told friends they’d been assaulted to go to the police.
Cedars Sinai said in a statement Gandhi no longer works with the hospital but it did not say when that arrangement ended.
“He has never been a Cedars-Sinai employee, but formerly provided services as a contract physician,” according to a hospital spokesperson, who declined to say whether or not the hospital had received any complaints about his behavior prior to the arrest.
Kraut said Gandhi resigned voluntarily in early January to avoid working in a “hostile environment,” but remains a licensed physician.
“We believe that the evidence will show that no crime was committed and all the interactions were consensual,” Kraut said.
