A former West Point cadet who admitted drugging his then-girlfriend and giving her abortion medication without her knowledge or consent, resulting in a miscarriage, is now facing a civil lawsuit seeking unspecified damages.
Caleb Suh pleaded guilty in June to assault resulting in substantial bodily injury to a dating partner. The charge stemmed from a March 2022 incident involving the woman, who was also a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy.
Since the incident, Suh has attended two Ivy League universities, including one where he began taking classes after entering his guilty plea. He graduated from Cornell University this year and was enrolled as a graduate student at Columbia University when the woman filed her lawsuit on Oct. 28.
The woman wanted to continue the pregnancy, but Suh did not want her to have the child. In court, Suh said he used her identity to create an account with an online pharmacy, ordered abortion medication by mail, obtained Xanax from a friend as a sedative and persuaded his girlfriend to drink what he described as a prenatal protein shake. After she fell asleep, he placed the abortion pills in her mouth and vagina.
Caleb Suh pleaded guilty this summer in connection with the March 2022 assault involving another West Point cadet. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Erin Hawley, an attorney with the pro-life legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom who played a central role in the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, said the woman endured an “absolutely horrific situation.”
“She was expecting a child she very much wanted, was drugged and assaulted,” Hawley, who is not representing the woman, told News Media. “The horrifying assault ended up causing the death of her very much wanted child — something no woman should ever have to endure. It has obviously caused a lot of harm and trauma, in addition to the loss of the baby she very much wanted.”
“She was drugged and assaulted with abortion pills, even though Mr. Suh knew she very much wanted that child. I expect that he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” she said.
Suh has not yet been sentenced.
According to the lawsuit, Suh left the woman alone while she was incapacitated and ignored her efforts to contact him after she awoke and realized she was bleeding. She was later taken to a hospital.
While the woman was being treated, Suh allegedly returned to the online pharmacy’s website and asked whether doctors would be able to detect the medication he had given her, the lawsuit states.
“She’s suffered a life-changing event that she is still dealing with and will be dealing with for the rest of her life,” her attorney, Russell Kornblith, told The Associated Press last week.
“We hope that by our client coming forward with this lawsuit, it will, at least, ensure that this never happens to anyone else,” Kornblith said.
Caleb Suh graduated from Cornell University this year and was studying at Columbia University when the woman filed her lawsuit late last month. (TW Farlow/Getty Images)
News Media contacted Suh’s attorney for comment.
At a June court hearing, Suh said he was “deeply and immeasurably sorry for my actions and the pain that I have caused.”
His sentencing has been moved to Jan. 21, 2027, at his attorney’s request so Suh can complete the semester at Columbia. Prosecutors did not object to the delay.
Suh’s attorney also told the court that he has been participating in a three-month life-skills course for people facing federal charges.
Suh transferred to Cornell during the 2023-24 academic year. In a statement last week, the university said he answered “no” on an application question asking whether he had ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at another institution.
Cornell said West Point reported that Suh was in good academic standing and eligible to return. According to the university’s website, he studied health and medicine at Cornell and hoped to become a physician.
Suh began a master’s program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in September, according to a letter his lawyer sent to the judge in the federal case. A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that applicants to the Mailman School are not asked about criminal records, but they are asked whether they have faced discipline for student conduct violations or poor academic performance.
The person told the outlet that Suh’s application did not disclose any previous disciplinary proceedings.
While the woman was receiving medical care, Caleb Suh allegedly returned to the online pharmacy’s website and asked whether the medication could be detected by doctors. (Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Regardless of one’s position on abortion, it is not good medicine to allow an abortion drug to be shipped across the country to a dorm room or a home without a woman ever having talked to a doctor,” Hawley said.
“The defendant in this case impersonated his girlfriend, had those drugs shipped and then assaulted her with them. That would never have happened if the FDA had done its job in 2023. Hopefully, when the courts do their job and reinstate that safeguard, it won’t continue to happen,” she said, referring to an Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision to eliminate the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. The agency had already stopped enforcing the requirement in 2021.
The assault occurred in March 2022, before the FDA’s 2023 decision. In April 2021, during the COVID-19 public health emergency, the agency announced that it would temporarily suspend enforcement of the in-person dispensing rule. The FDA announced plans to eliminate the requirement permanently in December 2021, and formally removed it in January 2023.
The FDA has said the change followed a review of the available evidence. Other safeguards, including requirements for prescriber certification, remained in place.
Hawley said the case involving the West Point cadets would not have occurred if the in-person dispensing requirement had remained in effect.
“Horrific incidents like that throughout the country would never have happened if that basic safeguard had been in place,” she said.