Patients of former Merrick doctor ponder lawsuits

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Nineteen years after former Merrick doctor Stuart Copperman was stripped of his medical license for reported cases of sexual assault, more than 50 of his former patients now hope to sue him for monetary damages under the Child Victims Act, according to an Oct. 8 article published by The New York Times.

The law opens a one-year window, beginning in August, during which victims of childhood sex abuse may file civil lawsuits against abusers, even decades after the crimes occurred, the Times wrote.

Copperman, now 84, received his medical license in 1961 and opened his Merrick practice in 1965, which he ran out of his basement at 3137 Hewlett Ave. For more than 35 years, he was the go-to doctor for thousands of children in Merrick and beyond. Affable and always reliable, the Times wrote, he was seen as trustworthy by most parents.


In 2000, six women testified to the Board of Professional Medical Conduct that Copperman had molested them, the Herald reported that year. According to the panel, the groping incidents occurred between 1978 and 1989; the patients’ ages ranged from 14 to 20 years old at the time of the incidents.

Before the revocation, the board received a “steady stream” of sexual abuse complaints against Copperman for nearly two decades, the Times reported.

“I am not a pervert or a child molester,” Copperman told another publication at the time. “I’ve always lived my life so that someone could never say something bad about it.”

Copperman lives in Boca Raton, Fla., and at The Greens at Half Hollow in Melville.

More on this story to follow.