Five Indian Americans Among 1,500 Individuals Pardoned by President Biden
- Shelinder Aggarwal, Meera Sachdeva, Babubhai Patel, Krishna Mote, and Vikram Dutta are serving sentences from 17 years to life imprisonment.
At least five Indian Americans are among the 1,500 individuals whose sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden, “the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history,” the White House announced yesterday. Shelinder Aggarwal, Meera Sachdeva, Babubhai Patel, Krishna Mote, and Vikram Dutta are serving sentences from 17 years to life imprisonment. A White House press release said “the roughly 1,500 people who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic and 39 others who were convicted of nonviolent crimes, especially drug crimes,” and have “shown successful rehabilitation.”
Shelinder Aggarwal, described in the media as “a pill mill doctor,” was sentenced in Feb. 7, 2017 for 15 years in prison for illegal prescribing of opioids, and health care fraud. The Huntsville, Alabama physician pleaded guilty in October 2016 “to one count of distributing a controlled substance outside the scope of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose, and to one count of conspiring to execute a health care fraud scheme against Medicare and BCBS of Alabama,” according to a Department of Justice press release.
Vikram Datta, owner of multiple retail perfume stores located on the United States-Mexico border, was sentenced to 235 months in prison “after prosecutors convinced a Manhattan jury he was heavily involved in the Black Market Peso Exchange,” The Texas Tribune reported at the time. “Vikram Datta used his perfume business to remove the stench from Mexican drug cartel money, and now he will pay a steep price for his crimes,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
Krishna Mote of Pennsylvania was sentenced to serve life in prison in December 2012 for distributing more than 280 grams of crack cocaine and more than 500 grams of cocaine, and distribution of crack cocaine as an aider and abettor, according to the Department of Justice. The court noted that Mote’s “two prior drug trafficking convictions triggered a federal statute that mandated the imposition of a life sentence.” He was also ordered to pay a $200 special assessment.
Babubhai Patel, a pharmacist from Michigan was sentenced to 17 years on 26 convictions for a healthcare fraud conspiracy, a drug conspiracy, and related fraud and drug violations in 2013.
Dr. Meera Sachdeva of Mississippi was sentenced in December 2012 on charges that she defrauded Medicare by submitting false claims for chemotherapy services. Sachdeva, who owned and operated Rose Cancer Center in Summit, pled guilty in July, 2012, “to submitting claims for chemotherapy services that were supposedly rendered when she was out of the country,” the Department of Justice said. She was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. She was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and restitution in the amount of over $8 million, as well as $6 million and four parcels of property.
