Manishkumar Patel, a Wisconsin man who spiked his pregnant girlfriend’s smoothie with abortion drug, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, according to media reports.
Mr. Patel, 45, was charged with intentional homicide of an unborn child after drugging his girlfriend’s smoothie with an abortion pill. He was convicted in August and sentenced Tuesday in Outagamie County in Wisconsin, according to Fox 11.
Local and national media reported that in 2007 Mr. Patel mixed RU-486, an abortion drug, into his girlfriend’s smoothie. She did not drink the smoothie but miscarried weeks later.
Media reported that shortly after charges were filed, Mr. Patel disappeared and forfeited a $750,000 bond until he was arrested a decade later in Malone, New York and transported back to Outagamie County, where he was held on a $50 million cash bond.
He testified that he went home to India to see his father “one last time.” Patel also said he didn’t want another child because he was afraid of any possible medical issues, like his other son, according to media reports.
“I took a life of an unborn child,” he said, in court, according to Fox 11. “I realized that even if the child had some sort of medical problems, he would still have had a life.”
According to court records and media reports, Patel, who is married, began an affair with physician Darshana Patel in 2001. In 2004, the couple had a son. In 2006, Darshana again became pregnant, but miscarried. The following year, she became pregnant again.
Darshana Patel told police she became suspicious when she watched Manishkumar stir a smoothie at an ice cream store and then offered it to her. She noticed a powdery substance on the rim of the cup and sent it off to a lab for testing, according to Daily Mail and other media reports.
The substance turned out to be RU-486 – mifepristone – an abortion drug that is only administered by doctors. Darshana faked a stomach ache and did not ingest any of the drug-laced smoothie offered by her boyfriend, but miscarried nonetheless a few weeks later.
She lodged a criminal complaint against her boyfriend in November 2007. Police searching Manishkumar Patel’s home found an envelope containing RU-486 pills. The suspect later told police he had obtained the drugs in India. He admitted to giving Darshana one pill, according to news reports.
