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The First Degree

Episode 228: Dr. Ricardo Cruciani

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.510K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From 2002 to 2017, 63-year-old Dr. Ricardo Cruciani practices medicine as an esteemed anesthesiologist, neurologist, and pain management specialist. He works in multiple renowned medical facilities where he treats patients with severe chronic pain by providing them with extremely high doses of prescription opioid painkillers. Cruciani’s work in pain management is widely lauded, and his peers consider him a gifted physician. But, in 2016, Cruciani’s employer receives eight complaints about his behavior. Reports indicate that he is sexually inappropriate toward his female patients. By September 2017, Cruciani is arrested on the charges of indecent exposure, indecent assault, and more. Dozens of former female patients come forward, claiming that Cruciani purposefully overprescribed them powerful painkillers so that they would develop an opioid addiction. Then, Cruciani leveraged his patients’ need for opioids to force them into unwanted sexual acts. In episode 228, Jac and Alexis delve into how Cruciani escaped justice for over fifteen years.

Transcript

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0:00.0

First degree.

0:02.0

First degree.

0:04.0

First degree.

0:06.0

First degree.

0:08.0

First degree.

0:10.0

Get on the news.

0:12.0

Get on the K-3.

0:14.0

Get on the Facebook.

0:16.0

These things are supposed to happen in movies, not real life.

0:20.0

When I first met him, nothing's that often alarmed out for me.

0:26.0

Nothing that made me double think about what was going on.

0:32.0

The day that I told him that I was pregnant and it was a surprise, I can see, was the day that it started.

0:38.0

He helped me.

0:40.0

Very tight.

0:42.0

He, you know, gets me cold.

0:44.0

He's ecstatic for me.

0:46.0

And I was like, me, that doesn't chill.

0:48.0

Okay.

0:50.0

I just would like continue.

0:52.0

I was more of the rubbing, the hard, you know, that it were too long, the, the, just stuff that just really made me uncomfortable.

1:02.0

And his hands were definitely not in appropriate places.

1:06.0

I felt stuck in this situation.

...

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