Former CDC head Tom Frieden is charged with forcibly touching a woman’s buttocks

A former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been arrested in New York on the sex abuse charges.

The New York Police Department says Thomas Frieden was arrested on Friday morning in Brooklyn.

The married father-of-two is accused of grabbing the buttocks of a 55-year-old woman he knew during a dinner party at his home last October.

A law enforcement official told CNN the party was wrapping up and people were saying goodbyes when Frieden reached over and groped the woman without her consent. 

The two have known each other for several years, the official said.

The woman is said to have reported the incident to police in July, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office interviewed her and found the claim to be credible. 

Frieden was tapped to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009

Frieden is scheduled to appear in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Friday afternoon to face one count of forcible touching, one count of sex abuse in the third degree and one count of harassment in the second degree.

There’s no information on an attorney who could comment on Frieden’s behalf. 

The former New York City health commissioner, who was tapped to run the CDC by President Barack Obama in 2009 and left the agency in 2017 on the day President Donald Trump was sworn into office, currently leads a global health initiative called Resolve to Save Lives. 

Across his career, Frieden has been praised for his work on reducing smoking rates and bringing the Ebola epidemic to its end. 

The 57-year-old has been praised for his work to end the Ebola epidemic while head of the CDC