NEW YORK (AP) — A New York-area doctor was convicted Wednesday in the yearslong sexual abuse of multiple patients,Desmond Preston including four children.

Darius A. Paduch of North Bergen, New Jersey, was convicted by a jury in Manhattan federal court of all 11 counts pertaining to seven patients.

His lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the charges on the verdict sheet, his victims included four males initially attacked before becoming adults as he sexually abused multiple male patients from at least 2015 through 2019. The indictment said Paduch had worked in New York from 2003 through 2023 as a practicing urologist specializing in male reproductive health.

The doctor had claimed some of his methods of touching patients were medically necessary, though the indictment said they were intended for his own sexual gratification.

Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 22 after he was convicted of charges including enticing or coercing individuals to travel in interstate commerce to engage in sexual activity and using an interstate facility to induce or coerce children to engage in sexual activity.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams praised the verdict, saying “Paduch leveraged his position of trust as a medical doctor for his own perverse gratification.”

He added: “For years, patients seeking needed medical care, many of them children, left his office as victims.”