Thomas Frieden, Ex-CDC Director, Charged With Sex Abuse
Thomas Frieden Image by Getty Images
Thomas Frieden, a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was arrested in New York City on Friday on charges of sexual abuse and harassment of a woman last year, the New York Police Department said.
Frieden, who also once served as New York City’s health commissioner, turned himself into a Brooklyn police station on Friday morning, Arlene Muniz, a police spokeswoman, said.
A 55-year-old woman filed a complaint against Frieden in July, accusing him of grabbing her buttocks against her will last October at his apartment in Brooklyn Heights, Muniz said.
As the city’s health commissioner from 2002 to 2009, Frieden oversaw efforts to ban smoking in public places. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed him as director of the CDC, the country’s main public health agency. He stepped down in 2017.
Frieden remained in custody on Friday, Muniz said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
