A doctor who worked at a Los Angeles university and was accused of sexually assaulting and raping patients during gynecological exams was found dead in his home, his lawyer said Thursday.
George Tyndall, 76, was to be tried in a trial for alleged acts he committed on unconscious patients at the prestigious University of Southern California (USC) health center between 2009 and 2016.
The faculty had agreed to pay the plaintiffs more than $1 billion in exchange for dropping the civil lawsuits.
According to his lawyer, Leonard Levine, George Tyndall was found unconscious in his Los Angeles apartment on Wednesday by a friend who had a key and had not heard from him.
“We are 99 percent sure he died of natural causes,” Mr. Levine said.
George Tyndall “desperately wanted to go to trial where the questions of guilt and innocence would be answered,” the lawyer added, saying his client had planned to testify and declare himself “innocent.”
Since the 1990s, the gynecologist has been accused of assault and rape by hundreds of patients, the youngest of whom was 17, and has always denied the facts.
He is also said to have taken photos of patients’ genitals and made obscene comments about their physiques as well as racist and homophobic comments.
According to testimony, the gynecologist frequently attacked foreign students, particularly Asians, who did not speak English fluently and were not accustomed to gynecological exams.
The affair had rocked the University of Southern California and was the subject of complaints from thousands of patients who accused it of failing to adequately respond to the allegations against Mr Tyndall and turning a blind eye to the actions of the practitioner, who retired in 2017.
This scandal led to the resignation of the university president in 2018.