Thomas Radecki
Thomas Edward Radecki (born 1946) is a former American psychiatrist and a founder of the National Coalition on Television Violence. He was known for his controversial belief that media violence harms teens and for opposing violent depictions in media. He later was convicted of abusing his medical position by trading prescriptions for sex with patients and of overprescribing opioids, and he is serving an 11 to 22 year prison sentence.
Radecki earned an MD from Ohio State University in 1973 and trained at Philadelphia General Hospital and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He later earned two law degrees. Earlier in his career he held medical licenses in West Virginia and Kentucky. In the 1980s he claimed that Dungeons & Dragons caused deaths, a claim rejected by courts; his Illinois medical license was revoked in 1992 for inappropriate sexual activity with a patient, though it was later restored with probation.
He served as research director for a group opposing violent entertainment and was involved with other media watchdog efforts. In 2012 he surrendered his Pennsylvania medical license amid unprofessional conduct allegations, and in 2013 he was arrested for overprescribing and trading opioid-treatment drugs for sex. He was sentenced in 2016, and a 2018 bid to reduce the sentence was denied.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:59 (CET).