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Doctor Pleads Guilty to Stealing Hand
Thursday, February 01, 2007
By JANET FRANKSTON LORIN, Associated Press Writer
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
NEWARK, N.J. — A young doctor pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing a hand from a cadaver when he was a medical student, then giving it to a stripper he had befriended.
Ahmed Rashed, 26, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of third-degree theft, said Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Judson Hamlin.
Rashed gave the hand to Linda Kay, 31, during one of his visits to the club where she worked. He got to know the exotic dancer while he was a first-year medical student at the school in 2002. She wanted a cadaver's hand, authorities said, and he complied.
Authorities said the hand was found in a jar on Kay's dresser. Friends have said she called it "Freddy."
"He meant no disrespect," said Rashed's attorney, Kalman Geist. "It appears that this body had served its purpose."
Geist said Rashed removed the hand from a fully dissected cadaver at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark that was scheduled for cremation, and was unaware that what he did was illegal. He graduated in 2005 and is now in his third year of residency at a Los Angeles hospital.
"A lot of people do things when they're 22 that they wouldn't do 10 years later," Geist said.
Rashed will be prohibited from seeking a license to practice medicine in New Jersey while he is on probation. Hamlin said he will recommend five years of probation at Rashed's sentencing hearing, scheduled for March 1.
A grand jury indicted Kay on a receiving stolen property charge, which was resolved when she agreed to be enrolled in a supervision program for one year, Hamlin said.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
By JANET FRANKSTON LORIN, Associated Press Writer
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
NEWARK, N.J. — A young doctor pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing a hand from a cadaver when he was a medical student, then giving it to a stripper he had befriended.
Ahmed Rashed, 26, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of third-degree theft, said Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Judson Hamlin.
Rashed gave the hand to Linda Kay, 31, during one of his visits to the club where she worked. He got to know the exotic dancer while he was a first-year medical student at the school in 2002. She wanted a cadaver's hand, authorities said, and he complied.
Authorities said the hand was found in a jar on Kay's dresser. Friends have said she called it "Freddy."
"He meant no disrespect," said Rashed's attorney, Kalman Geist. "It appears that this body had served its purpose."
Geist said Rashed removed the hand from a fully dissected cadaver at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark that was scheduled for cremation, and was unaware that what he did was illegal. He graduated in 2005 and is now in his third year of residency at a Los Angeles hospital.
"A lot of people do things when they're 22 that they wouldn't do 10 years later," Geist said.
Rashed will be prohibited from seeking a license to practice medicine in New Jersey while he is on probation. Hamlin said he will recommend five years of probation at Rashed's sentencing hearing, scheduled for March 1.
A grand jury indicted Kay on a receiving stolen property charge, which was resolved when she agreed to be enrolled in a supervision program for one year, Hamlin said.
He got to know the exotic dancer while he was a first-year medical student at the school in 2002.
:! Anyway, this is just sick and wrong.
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: I guess the stripper asked for the hand. Can you imagine if he just gave it to her? :: How does one even go about asking for that? And one would think something would be missing when they gathered up the body?!
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