BOSTON — A former anesthesiologist at Tufts Medical Center has been convicted by a federal jury of attempted sex trafficking of a child, the U.S. Attorney said.
Sadeq Ali Quraishi, 47, was convicted Thursday of one count of attempted sex trafficking of a child, Acting U.S. Attorney Josh Levy said in a statement on Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley scheduled sentencing for Jan. 28. Quraishi was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2022.
“The trafficking of women and minors for commercial sex is ever present in our communities and sex buyers from all walks of life drive this demand,” Levy said.
“As a practicing physician, Sadeq Quraishi was in a position of trust and expected to possess a strong ethical and moral compass. Instead, he engaged in extended negotiations with a purported trafficker and ultimately agreed to buy sex with a 14-year-old girl,” Levy said.
“Fortunately, this was a law enforcement operation and no real child was involved, but sadly that is not always the case,” Levy said. “We are actively prosecuting the men and women who traffic adults and kids for profit, but in order to make a real dent in this pernicious conduct, we also must go after the demand part of the equation –the people who are trolling the internet and trying to purchase sex with little kids.”
“I hope that every coward behind a keyboard who is thinking about engaging in the rape of the child under the auspices of a commercial transaction thinks twice – you may very well be talking to an undercover federal agent. Don’t do it,” Levy warned. “If you do, you are looking at a minimum of 10 years or more behind bars.”
In November 2022, Quraishi, then a practicing anesthesiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, responded to an online advertisement offering commercial sex with two young girls, Levy said.
During a text conversation with undercover agents posing as the seller of the two girls, Quraishi agreed to pay $250 for a sex act to be performed by a 14-year-old girl, Levy said. Shortly thereafter, Quraishi obtained cash from an ATM, and drove from his Boston home to a Waltham hotel to meet with the purported seller.
Once at the hotel, he met with an undercover agent, confirmed he had the money to pay for the commercial sex act, and accepted a keycard he believed would give him access to the room where the 14-year-old girl would be located, Levy said.
During that meeting, Quraishi was arrested and found to be in possession of exactly $250.
Tufts Medical Center previously said it suspended Quraishi’s medical privileges following his arrest.
“As a society, we put our trust in doctors and hold them to the highest ethical standards. Quraishi betrayed that trust by seeking out and attempting to pay to sexually abuse a child,” Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol for Homeland Security Investigations in New England said in a statement.
Authorities “will never relent in our pursuit of bringing child predators to justice,” Krol said.
The charge of attempted sex trafficking of a child carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and provides a maximum sentence of up to life in prison, a term of supervised release of at least five years and a fine of up to $250,000.
If you or someone you know may be impacted or experiencing commercial sex trafficking, authorities ask you to contact USAMA.VictimAssistance@usdoj.gov.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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