Last year, Live Action News contributor Calvin Freiburger wrote about Naresh Patel, an Oklahoma abortionist with a checkered past. In 1992, he was caught burning the bodies of aborted babies in a field, causing outrage. However, he was never charged with a crime… until he got caught in a vicious RU-486 scam. Patel pled guilty last October to lying to women about being pregnant so he could get their money. Now, he will never be able to practice medicine again and is a convicted felon.
Authorities were originally tipped off when he performed an abortion on a woman who was not pregnant, but did have cervical cancer. Her oncologists said that her cancer was so severe, it would have been impossible for her to get pregnant, and her death certificate said that she had not been pregnant in the last year. Yet Patel gave her the abortion drugs anyway. So police sent women in undercover, none of whom were pregnant. Patel told all of them they were, though, and charged $600 for the abortion pills. Another patient of his says that he performed an abortion on her without using any anesthesia, saying that the experience was “like torture.”
Patel did not acknowledge wrongdoing, but put in an Alford plea to avoid a trial. An Alford plea means that the defendant is not admitting guilt, but acknowledges that enough evidence exists that he would likely be found guilty by a jury. Thursday, the state medical board officially stripped him of his license. His clinic has also been shut down, and he will serve ten years probation for his crime. He also is forced to pay restitution, along with a $20,000 fine.
Oklahoma officials made it clear that they had one goal in mind with this case: to keep Patel from victimizing a woman ever again. Deputy Attorney General Megan Tilly explained, “Our main goal in this case was to ensure Dr. Patel no longer practices medicine in the state of Oklahoma and no longer ran any medical clinics in the state of Oklahoma.”
