‘Your future is in my hands,’ doctor allegedly claimed

An NYPD doctor repeatedly sexually abused a police officer during biweekly visits while telling him, “I think you need to get an erection because you are a man,” according to a lawsuit.

Then-Lt. Wilding Aguasanta began seeing Deputy Chief Surgeon Theobald Reich, who is now 98 and retired, every other week after he fell and was injured on the job in 2018, according to the suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday.

Aguasanta, 48, who had neck surgery after the fall at an NYPD Viper Unit, where cops monitor public housing cameras, got depressed and was given “mental health medication which prevented him from both consenting or objecting to the sexual abuse,” according to the lawsuit against the doctor and the city.

Reich would “ask him if he knows what this medication does to men?” according to the suit.

At each appointment, Reich would “touch Plaintiff’s penis and attempt to make him erect,” according to the suit.

The surgeon also told Aguasanta “I like brown skin,” according to the suit. He bought Aguasanta a bottle of Cuban Rum.

Aguasanta, who lives in Hempstead, LI, claims he emphatically said ‘No’ several times but feared he’d be fired if he reported Reich. The father-of-two was worried about losing his job.

“He told me, ‘You’re future is in my hands,’” Aguasanta recalled. “I needed the job. I needed the money, I needed my pension.”

Aguasanta retired in 2021 and received a pension, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

“The city cannot escape accountability for the culture of indifference that enabled this abuse,” lawyer John Scola said.

Reich hung up on a reporter. The city didn’t respond to an email.