Former Toledo physician Manish Gupta, sentenced for sex trafficking and drugging victims

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Manish Raj Gupta, 50, of Sylvania, Ohio, was sentenced Nov. 15, 2021, by Judge James G. Carr to more than 19 years in prison after Gupta, a former Toledo-area physician, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and illegally dispensing a controlled substance.

Gupta was sentenced to 235 months and ordered to pay a fine of $250,000 and over $57,000 in restitution, Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan announced.

As set out in court documents, Gupta was a plastic surgeon and business owner of three surgery centers located in the city of Toledo, the city of Oregon and the Southern Michigan area.  As a licensed doctor, Gupta was authorized to prescribe controlled substances within the course of his medical practice and for legitimate purposes.

According to court documents referred to in the U.S. Attorney’s press release, Gupta traveled to medical conferences in large urban areas,  often staying in centrally located hotels, hire escorts, incapacitate them with drugs to commit sexual acts of violence without consent, and often record these acts.

Among the cities he stayed in for conferences, the press release identifies Chicago in March and April of 2013, Cleveland in April of 2013, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale in June of 2015 and July 2019, Los Angeles in September of 2016 and various other dates in San Francisco and Detroit.

Gupta often recorded these assaults and, prior to his travel, would ship a bag described in court documents as a “rape bag,” containing drugs and recording equipment, to the hotel where he was staying, the press release said.

In August of 2016, court documents state that Gupta began corresponding online with Victim #1, an individual he intended to hire for sexual activity prior to planned travel to Los Angeles.  On September 23, 2016, Gupta met with the victim at the hotel where he was staying, administered an incapacitating controlled substance, performed sexual acts of violence and recorded the assault.

On March 6, 2020, FBI agents executed a federal search warrant at one of Gupta’s plastic surgery centers in Toledo and found items, including controlled substances, sedatives, recording equipment and video recording memory cards, one of which contained a recording of Gupta committing sexual assault.

Agents later discovered 61 different videos of Gupta committing sex acts of violence on at least 20 different unconscious women, including Victim #1, the press release said.