$190 Million Settlement for 8,000 Patients Secretly Recorded by Johns Hopkins Gynecologist

For 25 years, Dr. Nikita Levy worked as a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins' East Baltimore Medical Center, seeing roughly 12,600 patients between 1988 and early 2013. During that period he used a pen-shaped camera worn around his neck to secretly photograph and record women during pelvic examinations. A co-worker reported him in February 2013. Hopkins fired Levy immediately, and investigators searching his home discovered approximately 1,200 videos and 140 images stored on private servers. Ten days after his termination, Levy died by suicide before any criminal charges could be filed.

The scale of the violation was staggering. More than 8,000 former patients were identified as potential class members, each of whom had undergone intimate examinations while unknowingly being filmed. Investigators found no evidence that Levy distributed the material, but the discovery of the recordings was itself deeply traumatic for the women who learned what had happened to them.

The court certified the class and created a plaintiffs' steering committee of eight law firms. Jonathan Schochor of Schochor, Federico and Staton (now Schochor, Staton, Goldberg and Cardea) chaired it, with Howard Janet of Janet, Janet and Suggs as vice-chair. David Haynes, managing attorney of the Cochran Firm in Washington, sat on the committee, and the plaintiffs' firms also included Silverman Thompson Slutkin and White, Cardaro and Peek, Snyder and Snyder, and the Law Office of A. Dwight Pettit. The Associated Press called Schochor the women's lead attorney. Judge Sylvester Cox presided in Baltimore City Circuit Court. The lawsuit argued that the institution bore responsibility for Levy's conduct, having employed him for decades without detecting or stopping the abuse.

To structure compensation fairly across thousands of claimants with varying experiences, a forensic psychologist and a post-traumatic stress specialist interviewed the plaintiffs and placed each woman into a category based on her individual trauma level. That tiered framework governed how the settlement funds were allocated among class members.

In July 2014 the parties reached a $190 million settlement, subject to final judicial approval. At the time it was described as one of the largest settlements on record in the United States for physician sexual misconduct. The agreement resolved the claims of more than 8,000 women without any admission of wrongdoing by Johns Hopkins.