The University of Southern California will have to pay over $1.1 billion to over 700 women who claimed the school's former student health center gynecologist George Tyndall sexually assaulted them. A federal judge approved an $852 million settlement, which comes after the school was ordered to pay $215 million in a separate federal lawsuit last year.
The woman detailed decades of abuse by Tyndall, who is facing 18 counts of sexual penetration, 11 counts of sexual battery by fraud, five counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person, and one count of sexual battery by fraud. While the charges stem from alleged abuse that occurred starting in 2009, some of the allegations date back to the 90s.
While numerous women filed complaints against Tyndall over the years, school officials did nothing to stop the abuse. They never turned over the complaints to the state's medical board. Despite the allegations against him, the school took no action until 2016, when they suspended Tyndall.
When detectives searched Tyndall's home, they found 1,000 videos that were described as "homemade sex tapes" and sexually explicit photographs of his victims. Some of the victims said that Tyndall would show them photographs of his other patients during exams.
According to the New York Times, each victim will get between $250,000 and several million dollars.
"The reason U.S.C. paid this money was that there was culpability — they knew early on, in the early '90s and all the way through his tenure that this was happening," said John C. Manly, who represented a group of plaintiffs, said. "If you're an institution of higher education, you will pay if you do this."
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