Former KY doctor sentenced to 8 years, ordered to pay $800,000 in child porn case
A doctor who admitted sending pornographic images to a teenage Kentucky girl with whom he was having sex has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Ashu Joshi agreed to pay $800,000 in restitution to the girl.
Joshi, a native of India whose specialty is internal medicine, received a U.S. license and practiced in London for about 15 years before moving to St. Louis in 2016, according to court records.
Joshi was 46 when he met a 16-year-old girl through her mother, a former patient of Joshi’s.
The girl, identified only as M.D. in court records, wanted to talk to Joshi about becoming a doctor, but they started having sex in March 2018, according to court records.
The teen said she sent Joshi explicit images at his request in the summer and fall of 2018.
Joshi also took pornographic photos of the girl that they exchanged over Facebook Messenger, he acknowledged in his plea agreement.
That was the basis for the charge of distributing images of child pornography.
Joshi took the girl from Kentucky to St. Louis, where they had sex, according to the court record.
Police began investigating after Facebook notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the girl sending pornographic images to Joshi’s account, according to the court record.
Facebook used a surveillance algorithm to spot the photos, according to a court document.
The center contacted police, who arrested Joshi in October 2018. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure suspended his license.
U.S. District Judge John A. Ross sentenced him in Missouri earlier this month.
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 10:48 AM.
