Fertility doctor Hardy '81, accused of sexual misconduct, allegedly assaulted women as U. student

The University allegedly responded insufficiently to multiple allegations of sexual assault by fertility doctor Roger Ian Hardy ’81 while he was a student, according to the Boston Globe.

Hardy did not respond to requests for comment.

University Media Relations Specialist Min Pullan noted that administrators who would have addressed this issue no longer work at the University. She added that sexual assault records about students are not discussed without said student’s consent to release records.

The allegations surfaced when two additional accusations of sexual assault were brought up against Hardy earlier this month, according to the Globe.

According to the Globe, several former classmates of Hardy noted that he allegedly assaulted several women while at the University. Two cases were reported to University officials, while another woman reported her case to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine.

The two allegations reported to University administrators at the time were allegedly ignored, according to the Globe.

For the past three decades, the Globe notes, people in positions of authority, such as college administrators, hospital supervisors, clinic owners and medical colleagues, were told of sexual assaults allegedly done by Hardy. Most cases saw little response, according to the Globe.

Hardy, a former medical director at the Fertility Centers of New England, was accused of sexually assaulting several of his patients during medical procedures since 1999, the Globe reported.

In January 2014, while under an investigation by the Board of Registration in Medicine, Hardy resigned his medical license but maintained his innocence.

Representatives of the Fertility Centers of New England did not respond to request for comment.

Nicholas Di Mauro, the attorney for the Fertility Centers of New England, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the Globe, one patient of Hardy claimed that Hardy assaulted her while she was under anesthesia during a September 2013 egg retrieval procedure at a Fertility Centers of New England clinic. According to the Globe, when the patient woke up from the procedure, the physical trauma she experienced was not typical of egg retrieval procedures, and afterwards experienced anxiety, depression, nightmares and insomnia as a result. She told Hardy and several nurses about "severe vaginal trauma and bleeding," but Hardy allegedly dismissed this as part of the process, as it "was a normal part of the procedure, and that he had to go in deep and hard," the Globe reported.

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Her lawsuit claims that the clinic knew about Hardy's alleged history of sexual abuse, but hid it from their patients.

A second patient claimed that Hardy inappropriately touched her during an ultrasound imaging test of her uterus in June 2012. The patient was awake during the procedure. In an interview with the Globe, she told that she plans on pressing charges against Hardy and the clinic.

Previously, several other patients have described similar experiences with Hardy in the clinic but received little response, the Globe reported.