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By Cara McCoy 
Published Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 | 2:08 p.m.
Updated Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 | 5:40 p.m.
Dr. Mahesh Patel
A Las Vegas dentist is facing charges after allegedly setting up a video camera in his practice’s bathroom and capturing images of a female employee and another woman in various states of undress.
Dr. Mahesh Patel, 45, is charged with one count of capturing the image of the private area of another person, a gross misdemeanor. Jail records indicate he was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Monday.
According to a Metro Police report, after a female employee at the Advanced Center for Dentistry, 770 Warm Springs Road, reported to work on Jan. 11, Patel, her employer, requested her assistance with a scheduled procedure and asked her to change into her scrubs, the woman told an investigating officer.
The woman said she went into a unisex bathroom and began to change her clothes. As she bent at the waist, she noticed an object in a tissue holder. Upon further examination, she saw the object had a switch labeled “record.” She told the officer she then realized the device was a video camera; she switched the power off, removed it from the tissue holder and kept it with her, according to the police report.
The woman then went to perform the procedure with Patel. She said she noticed that during the procedure, he was “acting funny.” After the procedure was completed, Patel confronted the woman and asked where the device was, the woman told police. The woman said she asked Patel if the device belonged to him, to which he replied affirmatively. He said the device must have fallen out of his pocket, police said.
The woman said she found the device in a tissue box and that it wasn’t on the floor. Patel then apologized and said he had hidden the device so he could spy on her, the report said. The woman refused to return the device and tried to leave the building, but Patel “blocked the doorway, and continued to beg for the device back,” the report stated.
The woman contacted her husband. She then went home, where she viewed what was on the memory card and saw images of herself undressing, according to the report. She went to a police station to report what had happened.
According to the arrest report, police obtained a search warrant and found video evidence of Patel setting up the recorder and placing it at an angle that showed the toilet area. They also obtained footage of the reporting employee and a second, unidentified woman in states of undress in the restroom.
Patel is scheduled to appear before a judge Wednesday morning.
A call to his practice on Tuesday yielded a voicemail message indicating the practice was closed. State dental board records indicate Patel has been licensed since 1993.
wow... classy...
axe murders, d.u.i. teens, pervert dentists...gee, i wonder why we can't get any good jobs to come to vegas.
Gee, I don't see what is wrong with this. This is the libertarian conservative ideal. No minimum wage, no building codes and let the employers do anything they want, after all people can work elsewhere. It is a right to work state after all. If employees don't like being photographed in the bathroom, well they can work elsewhere. I think we should bring back indentured servitude. After all, it was a willing contract. Why should government get involved with business. Too many government regulations...why is this law on the books anyway...too many laws...now back to the vin and sherm show...
"mred" be quiet. Not every topic has politics involved, nor does it especially have to be a political debate. I'm sure that if you came across a blank page that accidentally fell into your paper you'd start blabbing on and on that it was somehow related to censorship. Stop trying to "find" some great, hidden meaning in everything that doesn't exist in the first place so that you can get people to listen to you, and just grow up.
As for the dentist, yeah, he's scum.
@mred: WE may be the indentured servants trying to go elsewhere if we don't give tempered, sensible forms of libertarianism a break from the reputation caused by anarchocapitalist nonsense. After all, indentured servants came here to flee the sociopolitical mess caused by monarchies, which support excessive government regulations and use the peoples' fears of anarchy to quash any attempts to seek GENUINE freedom and equality via liberty and the responsibilities liberty entails.
stevem...
we live in a Stephen King Novel.
We just don't know it!
How amazingly stupid of this doctor to throw his career and business away for a quick get off. What some will do for jollies.
This guy reads like a doofus criminal character in a Hiaasen novel.
lol...mred is such a moron. to somehow link this perv's actions to conservatism is pretty pathetic.
In 1990 Chuck "Johnny B Goode" Berry was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the ladies' bathrooms at two of his Wentzville restaurants. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Though his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement with 59 women. Berry's biographer, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.
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Comment removed by moderator. Comment contained a personal attack.
I have a cousin in Philly who has a jewelry store. He did the same thing with the camera. It must be something going around.
mred is an idiot of course, that we can all agree on.
HA HA HA!! What a pervert dentist! Good riddance creep!!
I agree with Mred, we should just let the free market deal with this. The invisible hand will sort it all out in the end, who needs any gum'mint?
Comment removed by moderator. Comment was racist.
If I was the husband his teeth would be broken.
School Spies Students Through Their Laptop Cameras
High School students have sued the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia for spying on them using their laptops' built-in cameras. School administrator activated the webcams remotely and recorded students' activities at home.
The civil suit was filed last week against the Lower Merion School District in Ardmore, PA, its board of directors and the Superintendent. It alleges violations of the electronic Communications Privacy Act, The Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act and Pennsylvania Common Law. In part, the suit reads:
Unbeknownst to Plaintiffs and the members of the Class, and without their authorization, Defendants have been spying on the activities of Plaintiffs and Class members by Defendants' indiscriminant use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District, This continuing surveillance of Plaintiffs' and the Class members' home use of the laptop issued by the School District, including the indiscriminant remote activation of the webcams incorporated into each laptop, was accomplished without the knowledge or consent of the Plaintiffs or the members of the class.
The suit notes that there are about 1,800 students in the district's two high schools and that students were each assigned a laptop computer that was purchased, in part, through state and federal grants secured over the past few years. The suit also notes that all of the written documentation that accompanied the laptop made no reference to the district's ability to remotely activate the embedded webcam.
The issue came to light in November when an assistant principal informed a student about improper behavior in his home and produced a photograph captured from the laptop's webcam as proof. The suit did not specify the type of activity the student was engaged in.
Because the webcam would capture images of anything in its range, including the actions of other household members and their guests, the plaintiffs in the case extend to family members, as well as the students themselves.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=30945
http://gizmodo.com/5474614/school-spies-...
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Comment removed by staff. Comment contained a personal attack.
Well not really, but it WOULD BE.
planetearthcalling...
easy.
mred is fine.
It's a free world, isn't it?
well, COUNTRY. Allegedly.
This is just disgusting, bad enough having to go to the dentist but this is just nasty! I feel bad for the victims involved with this and hope somehow justice is served.
Now I know why Amy Winehouse's teeth look like that.
Didn't this guy have billboards all over town advertising $100 fillings or something?
GRRRREEEAAAATTTTTT, here is another jerk. Pull this guys license...
For every $100 filling, cap, crown, partial, bridge, and root canal work done by this toothless wonder.... and he gets a 25 cent peepshow out of it off the toilet cam.
Maybe he could answer all our tech problems and not be sent to jail!
"The woman refused to return the device and tried to leave the building, but Patel "blocked the doorway, and continued to beg for the device back," the report stated".
Such a small man.
My dentist has a camera to take pictures of my teeth. This Perv should have a sign in his front yard.
what a scumbag, he'll probably get a slap on the wrist
Good Grief. To lose all you worked for, for a cheap thrill. Really?
Comment removed by moderator. Comment was racist.
Comment removed by moderator. Comment was racist.
slumdog dentistry
It gives knew meaning when your dentist says, "open wide"! And I'm not an anti-dentite.
He was only trying to catch who keep peeing on the toilet seat, and all over the floor, stealing his Kleenex, toilet paper, and flushing kotex down the toilet.
mred, you need to change your name to "GOMER"
Is anyone even surprised that mred would attempt to connect this to conservatism? This dentist could have been Harry Reid and he would have said that Harry was a closet republican.
Wake up mred! People make mistakes and sometimes it has nothing to do with political affiliation.
Thisoneguy shows off his intelligence too. Conservatives aren't anarchist. This is a moral issue, not an economical one. I guess you can't tell the difference.
Gmag, a free world is not free of consequences. In mred's case, stupid comment=people making fun of him.
Too much government regulation, yes your right. Maybe he had the camera in the can to prevent employees from stealing the extra roll of TP?
What is less invasive? a can camera or a drug test, or pulling someone's credit report?
All I hear is "laws that hurt small business" clap-trap all day long on the hate-talk radio.
The libertarian loonies want to go back to the 1800's as far as workplace regulation. Maybe the talk stations shut me out from expressing my point of view on some of the radio websites, but apparently they can't do it here. I call it as I see it.
that's one dirty dentist
A dentist has loadsof money..he could afford daily trips to Pahrump to have legal fun.Why to do such crap?
OMG, Dr. Patel used to be our dentist. He was a little off even back then, which is why we quit going there. The sad thing is I remember his wife used to work his front desk. She was the sweetest, kindest woman. She did not deserve to have her world turned upside down like this.
I remember this one dentist from Kenai Alaska itemized $15,000 that he spent at a Nevada brothel and catagorized it as "educational expenses".... Needless to say the IRS sentenced the guy for three years on all the fraud charges that he was convicted of...
However this dentist hadji here takes the cake with his bollywood toilet cam peepshow production as his employee took a "bite out of crime".
Gives asschewing a whole new meaning if he could see teeth showing.
I was LMAO when I read mred's comments then started LMFAO when I read DMCVegas responses....then lost it when I read "bollywood toilet cam peepshow production" This is prob some of the funniest responses I have read in response to an article in a long time.....
udde: I said something in the same genre and was castigated as a racist. Why are you immune to the censorship?
Whew whoo! Finally, there is justice!
You go girl! Iam sorry this happened to that employee but, she did the right thing. Had she not went to the police and went to the dental board instead it would have been squashed and nothing would ever have been done about it.
Dentists in this town, have a license to do anything they want and they know it. Do you really think he thought anything would happen to him (no, of course not) thats why he wasnt afraid to do what he did. Most of them think they are above the law. You wouldnt believe what they get away with.
- a dental employee
A long time ago, some of my frat brothers secreted a recording device in the women's restroom during a Friday mixer with the understanding that it would be played during the next meeting of the entire fraternity. It was hilarious (and grossly embarrassing for some) to hear what the ladies had to say about their boyfriends, dates, and assorted horndogs.
"I call it as I see it" -mred
You call it as you want to see it. You compare Patel's camera in the bathroom to drug testing? Come on!
To all of the Marxist-Democrats out there, what this Benny Hinn-type lookalike did is against God's moral law and man's anti-perversion law, as well. I say deport the creepie dude.
It's not the same as going to Pahrump. Totally different thrill, and the reason he did in the first place, not so much the sex drive, as the far stronger, self determination factor, may well appear a bit odd-ball and hardly worth the sacrifice of his career for a quickie of any ilk.
It just goes to show how strong our innate drive is to direct our own energy to access our own mountain tops in our own realms. This guy pushed his ethical envelope to get his quick thrill and you know he is, like, driven to do totally foolish things so figure he's got serious issues that would preclude his value as a valued member of our human clan. Well, we're all dentists with cameras.
I'm not sayin Gibby would sniff a bicycle seat. Or grab ass in a parking lot. Or Ensign would get mommy and daddy to help him out of another embarrassing jam, or Tiger would line 'em up and nail 'em out of some perverted sense of attraction/obsession or compulsion. No, I'm not sayin it's any worse than Mother Teresa giving her all to empower the least able, or Bill Gates doing the same thing. It's the same drive - not sex, but autonomy. Forgive us for we pursue happiness.
Not sayin it's okee dokee to scope out genitalia and defecation in sneaky cameras in bathrooms, but nobody's really gonna fault the guy for not being human, just for being stupid being belief, poor guy.
Must be rough being so hooked by crotches, perfume, anything female, that you're a slave to putting your little brain into a trance and oooh and aah at a laptop in a dark room and call it a life.
@Givemeabreak:
Yes, I WOULD believe the stuff that dentists do...
Less than 2 weeks ago, I had one attempt to sedate me via injection, but extravasatedad me instead.
(For those of you who don't know, that means the needle went THROUGH my vein instead of INTO it, and the medicine was not able to enter my bloodstream, so it had almost no effect.)
As he was about to begin the procedure, and I was still VERY alert, I asked if he was going to sedate me. He replied "You ARE sedated!"
I must also add that remarking upon this was all it took for him, and his staff, to begin treating me as a 'difficult' patient. It's obviously something he does, often. When I had to call there a few days later, they immediately tried to tell me how to soothe my injection-site pain.(Which I hadn't even mentioned!) So, when they said I needed to see my MEDICAL Doc-for any other pain issues-I started looking for places to report him.
As you said, they are cocky, because they KNOW they can get away with it!
That said, I don't have any problem with dentists, as a profession.
(My rant continues...)
@airweare-
I commend you, for reminding us that we're all still driven by our animal instincts. I agree that it must be one of the harder fettishes to live with.
We do live in a state where prostitution is legal, and well-regulated in certain areas. (It should be legal everywhere IMO) More to the point- with very little effort, and an internet connection, this man could have searched for sites that cater to people who enjoy the same things he does, and perhaps have connected with someone who would be happy to help him out-perhaps for free!
So, even though I can only imagine that it's also "rough" to be a pedophille...because it's not the same "thrill" to pay an ADULT to look/dress/behave like a child, I can neither excuse that they ACT upon their urge to be with an ACTUAL child, nor do I find it a forgiveable way to "pursue happiness". There is alot to be said, for the need to have informed consent, which you cannot get from a child.
@Sergio:
You say that there's no harm done, because he owned the property. I say that doesn't hold water, because it is a BUSINESS. There are many things one cannot do as a private citizen, but people seem to get away with under the 'authority of office' so to speak.
If I took my car in for an oil change, I would be outraged, if it was returned to me painted a different colour, simply because my mechanic had a compulsion to do it!
You could argue that the new paint was a benefit to me, or that it didn't harm me... Since I brought it to the shop of my own accord, it would be thought of legally, as a mere breech of contract. But, if he did the same thing on his off time, it would be called vandalism.
I think they should not only charge him for every time any woman entered the bathroom,(even if they only went in to fix their hair!) but, I as can only imagine that at some point, there were some minors in there...
Do I hear more charges being filed? I hope so...and a big ol' civil suit as well!!
This man went into the wrong area of medicine-I mean, why didn't he get into gynecology, or proctology? We women would have PAID him to look at such things, then!
(steps down from soapbox)
Patel, aren't they the hotel people?
'God what a shot in 314, look at that! Oooh!'
Patel: 'Let's put rohypnal in the room service for 314! Ready by sundown. Yum!'
As a patient of Dr Patel's this is the last thing I would have imagined! His dentisty is excellent, I am floored and hope these charges are false.