More sex abuse allegations filed against former Mercer County doctor

Thirteen more women allege in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday that they were sexually assaulted by a former OBGYN who lost his license in 2024 and faces similar charges from dozens of other one-time patients.

New York-based law firm Levy Konigsberg filed a civil complaint in state Superior Court in Mercer County on behalf of the women, New Jersey residents who allege former Dr. Bruce Pierce assaulted them during routine office visits dating back to 2003.

Jerome “Jerry” Block, a partner at Levy Konigsberg, told the New Jersey Monitor he expects more women will continue to come forward since Pierce had practiced for decades under a license granted in 1996. Block said Pierce’s employers ignored evidence that he was a “serial sexual predator.”

“We’ve seen in these cases that women complained about Dr. Pierce for years and that these corporate defendants failed to act. Companies operating health systems cannot ignore red flags and put profits over patient safety,” Block said.

At least 45 women have accused Pierce of sexual abuse through a handful of civil lawsuits filed in the past year alone, several of which also blamed the clinic where he worked and entities that oversaw its operations.

The claim filed Tuesday also alleges Pierce’s employer, Delaware Valley OB-GYN and Infertility Group; national provider network Lifeline Medical Associates; and Unified Women’s Healthcare, a regional network that oversaw the clinic’s business operations, were negligent in their training and oversight of his work, oblivious to an obvious pattern of abuse, and failed to contact law enforcement or protect patients.

As medical providers, these entities and their representatives were “outrageous in their disregard for Plaintiff’s rights and safety,” the complaint reads.

The plaintiffs include first and longtime patients, pregnant women, and one who had invited Pierce to her children’s wedding and considered him “family.”

“Provider Defendants gave Pierce authority, space, power, and control over Plaintiffs with no reasonable oversight. It was that authority, space, power, access, and control that allowed Pierce to commit the wrongful conduct and sexual abuse against Plaintiffs,” the complaint says.

According to the claim, the women faced psychological trauma, depression, anxiety, humiliation, and more, and continue to be impacted by the abuse. They have also lost trust in medical professionals, particularly men, have avoided medical care and intimate exams, and have a diminished quality of life as a result, it says.

An attorney who represented Pierce in an earlier civil suit declined to comment on the latest complaint, which they had not seen. Calls to Delaware Valley, Lifeline, and Unified were not returned.

The new case comes just weeks after two other women filed separate lawsuits in Mercer County that allege similar abuse by Pierce and blame Delaware Valley, Lifeline, and Unified for not doing more to protect patients, court records show.

“Plaintiff was entitled to competent, ethical, and safe medical care. Instead, she was subjected to sexual assault in a clinical setting, facilitated by the failures of Defendants to supervise, control, and protect her,” wrote attorneys from a Piscataway firm representing one victim in papers filed Oct. 6.

In late July, a Philadelphia firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of 31 New Jersey women who claim they faced similar assaults by Pierce and blame his employer for failing to address the problem. At least eight of them reported the behavior to other employees at the Delaware Valley clinic, and several times there were chaperones in the room when the alleged abuse occurred, according to the lawsuit.

In October 2024, the state Office of the Attorney General called for the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners to investigate Pierce and, after a hearing that involved testimony from two witnesses who said they had also been sexually abused by the doctor under the guise of medical care, the board revoked his license two months later. One of the witnesses also reported the incident to local police.

Block said Lawrenceville Police have received at least 15 complaints of sexual abuse involving Pierce, and his clients want to know why the former physician has not been charged. The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said they do not comment on investigations or their existence, but confirmed Tuesday there were currently no charges pending against Pierce.

Some medical providers have opted to notify patients when a doctor in their network is charged with abuse, Block said, like Columbia University did when former OBGYN Robert Haddon was convicted of sexual assault in 2023 and sentenced to two decades in prison. But Block said Delaware Valley and its co-defendants have not conducted an internal investigation or contacted patients.

“These hospital systems should want to know for themselves fully what happened, so they could avoid having anything like this happen in the future. They should not just be interested in defending these cases and limiting their liability. They should be interested in knowing how their systems failed and how their systems permitted a doctor to sexually abuse patients for so many years,” he said.

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