George Tyndall, a former University of Southern California campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing multiple patients, was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday. He was 76.
Tyndall’s defense attorney, Leonard Levine, confirmed the news to the Los Angeles Times. He said that a close friend found Tyndall unresponsive after he’d failed to return her phone calls the day before.
Tyndall, who worked for the university for 27 years, was charged with the abuse of 16 women in 2019, following what the Los Angeles Police Department said was its “largest investigation of sexual abuse by a single perpetrator.”
Tyndall was set to go on trial next year for crimes that allegedly took place between 2009 and 2016. He was accused of inappropriately touching patients, making harassing remarks and taking photos without patient consent during gynecological exams at one of the campus health clinics.
In 2021, USC agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion to settle claims related to Tyndall’s alleged abuse, the largest payout of its kind in the history of higher education.
“I’m not happy that he died,” Audry Nafziger, a former patient who’d accused Tyndall of abuse, told the LA Times. “I wanted to see him convicted for what he did.”
Levine asserted his client’s innocence following the news of his death.
“From the very beginning, Dr. Tyndall had adamantly denied every one of the charges against him,” Levine said. “All he ever wanted was his day in court, which he was confident would end in his complete exoneration. Now, neither he nor his accusers will get that, and that is very unfortunate for everyone involved.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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