Main Line doctor who stalked and tormented the family of her ex’s new beau sentenced to jail
Amy Cohen was suffering from a mental health crisis when she lit a fire at a 99-year-old woman's home in Lower Merion, her lawyer told a judge Wednesday.
A Main Line doctor who terrorized the family of her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend was sentenced Wednesday to 11½ to 23 months in jail over objections from her attorney that incarceration would ruin the progress she has made through mental health treatment.
Amy Cohen, 36, was so upset that her ex had moved on, prosecutors said, that she suffered a mental break. She researched where his new beau’s relatives lived and papered their homes with fliers accusing the woman of “promoting Islamophobia,” calling her a terrible person and threatening to “end her family” if she didn’t leave the state.
And then, on Nov. 30, 2023, Cohen set fire to the Lower Merion home of her romantic rival’s 99-year-old grandmother. The 1:30 a.m. blaze was detected before the home was fully engulfed, prosecutors said, and its owner escaped injury.
Cohen pleaded guilty to arson, reckless endangerment, terroristic threats, and related crimes in December. Attempted murder and aggravated assault charges were dismissed after prosecutors credited Cohen for six months she spent in an inpatient mental health facility in Mississippi to treat disorders she has suffered from since her childhood.
Her attorney, John McMahon, on Wednesday asked Montgomery County Court Judge Wendy Rothstein to release Cohen on probation, with credit for the time she spent in county jail after her arrest, and later stints at Norristown State Hospital and the out-of-state facility.
“It’s in everyone’s interest that she continue to heal and get better,” he said. “Not backslide and go to jail, and lose the benefit of all this treatment. That doesn’t make sense.”
But Rothstein was not swayed.
“The next step in your rehabilitation process is understanding there are consequences for your actions and accepting them,” the judge said.
Cohen was arrested after her ex recognized her in surveillance footage of the arson, and police later found lighter fluid and copies of the letters Cohen sent to the new girlfriend in the trunk of her car. He told police Cohen did not take their recent breakup well, and had been obsessively following him and his new girlfriend on social media, researching where she lives and works.
That woman told Rothstein on Wednesday that her life and that of her family have been completely upended by Cohen’s actions. Fear and paranoia still grip her, she said, and she felt like she had to constantly “look over my shoulder” while Cohen was free on bail.
Her now 101-year-old grandmother still wrestles with the aftermath of Cohen’s actions, she said. Though the elderly woman’s memory is declining, her granddaughter said, she still asks about “the girl who tried to burn [her] house down.”
“Amy demonstrated a total disregard for human life,” the woman said, “which is disgusting, knowing that she is a doctor.”
Cohen worked as an infectious-disease physician at Bryn Mawr Medical Specialist Association and saw patients at Bryn Mawr Hospital, according to an archived staff bio on the practice’s website. Her medical license was suspended after her arrest, expired in October, and has not been renewed, state records show.
In court, Cohen apologized to the family she targeted, saying she no longer recognizes the person she was when she stalked, harassed, and threatened them.
“I know me saying I’m deeply sorry doesn’t compensate for my actions, but I hope you are able to begin to heal,” Cohen said,adding that she is fully committed to her treatment and remaining a law-abiding citizen.
Frank Dattilio, a psychologist who treated Cohen, testified Wednesday that she had suffered from ADHD, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety since she was a child, and at the time of her crimes, had been abusing the Adderall prescribed to treat those issues.
In 2023, still spiraling from the stress of working long hours during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cohen was in an “amphetamine-induced psychosis” when she targeted the victims in the case, Dattilio said.
He said he shared McMahon’s concern that if Cohen were sentenced to jail, she would backslide and lose the stability of thinking and behavior she has gained through treatment.
Rothstein, in handing down her ruling, said any issues with Cohen’s treatment could be addressed in the county jail.