LOS ANGELES _ George Tyndall, the former University of Southern California campus gynecologist accused of sexual misconduct against hundreds of patients, was arrested Wednesday and charged with more than two dozen felonies, authorities said.
Tyndall was taken into custody outside his apartment in the Westlake neighborhood of L.A. near MacArthur Park, his attorney Andy Flier said.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office filed 29 felony counts against Tyndall involving 16 of his female patients.
The complaint, signed by sex crimes prosecutor Reinhold Mueller on Tuesday, accuses Tyndall of sexually abusing patients between August 2009 and April 2016, just two months before he was forced out of USC's Engemann Student Health Center.
He faces 18 counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person, meaning patients were unaware that the penetration did not _ as the alleged perpetrator claimed _ serve a professional purpose.
Additionally, Tyndall faces 11 counts of sexual battery by fraud for touching an "intimate part" of a patient "for the purpose of sexual arousal" and under the guise of a "professional purpose."
Tyndall, 72, faces up to 53 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors will ask a judge to set bail at just over $2 million, according to the complaint.
Tyndall has maintained his innocence and denies all the allegations against him, attorney Leonard Levine said.
"After one year of being tried in the press," the attorney said, "Dr. Tyndall looks forward to finally having his case adjudicated in a court of law."
Interim USC President Wanda M. Austin said the university was awaiting further details on Tyndall's arrest.
"We have cooperated with the LAPD and district attorney's office investigations since the beginning and will continue to do so. We care deeply about our community, and our top priority continues to be the well-being of our students, health center patients and university community," Austin said. "We hope this arrest will be a healing step for former patients and our entire university."
One former Tyndall patient interviewed by police and prosecutors was Audry Nafziger, who graduated from USC's Gould School of Law and went on to supervise sex crimes cases at the Ventura County district attorney's office.
In a 1990 visit with Tyndall, she told investigators, the physician examined her without gloves, took photographs of her genitals and gave her what she thinks was an erroneous diagnosis for a sexually transmitted disease.
"They asked all the questions I would've asked as a prosecutor," she said.
Ultimately, prosecutors did not charge Tyndall for his conduct toward Nafziger or any of the hundreds of other women who have accused him of misconduct in the 1990s and early 2000s.
"I'm sure I am way out of statute," Nafziger said. Still, she said, his arrest was a relief.
"He's done this for 30 years. This is who he is, and he'll never stop. I think it's a public safety risk that he has been walking the streets for a year.
"Knowing he will never hurt another person again means the world to me," she said.
LAPD detectives have been collecting evidence in the case against Tyndall since May 2018, when the Los Angeles Times first reported he had been accused repeatedly of inappropriately touching patients and making suggestive remarks about their bodies.
A team of investigators crisscrossed the country last summer and fall, interviewing scores of alumnae about their experiences with Tyndall. Detectives also scrutinized evidence seized from the doctor's apartment and a storage locker in a raid early last year.
Ultimately, detectives presented scores of cases to prosecutors for potential criminal charges, according to a spokesman for the L.A. County district attorney's office.
Earlier this month, a federal judge granted preliminary approval to a landmark $215 million class-action settlement that USC has agreed to pay to former patients.
Under the terms of the settlement, the about 17,000 women treated during the physician's three-decade career would each be eligible to receive from $2,500 to $250,000. The amount would depend on the severity of the alleged misconduct and the women's willingness to confidentially detail those experiences in written statements or interviews.
John Manly, who represents nearly 200 former patients, said the women were "gratified" to learn of Tyndall's arrest.
"The survivors are looking forward to the courts finally delivering justice and holding Tyndall accountable for years of abuse," he said.
The preliminary sign-off by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson is not expected to conclude USC's payouts to female students and alumnae. More than 720 women are pursuing separate claims against the university in state court, and their lawyers have criticized the class-action agreement as paltry.
David Ring, a civil attorney representing former patients who met with the LAPD and district attorney's office after filing police reports, said Tyndall's arrest was long overdue.
"Dr. Tyndall got away with his crimes for an astonishingly long time. But his arrest today reaffirms what his victims have said all along: This is a dangerous criminal who preyed on vulnerable female patients."
Mai Mizuno, who was a 19-year-old USC freshman when she saw Tyndall in 2016, said she was informed by authorities she is among the alleged victims in in the charges.
"It does give me hope justice can be served for the victims of his abuse." Said Mizuno, now 22, who graduated in May. "I felt slowly erased by the process because the DA took so long to charge him.
"Personally, I want to be able to close the door on this chapter of my life," Mizuno added. "I have tried to move on with my life."
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