Former Tufts Medical Center Doctor Convicted of Attempted Sex Trafficking of a Child

BOSTON - A former anesthesiologist at Tufts Medical Center was convicted yesterday by a federal jury of attempted sex trafficking of a child.

Sadeq Ali Quraishi, 47, was convicted of one count of attempted sex trafficking of a child. U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley scheduled sentencing for Jan. 28, 2024. 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. 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. Fortunately, this was a law enforcement operation and no real child was involved, but sadly that is not always the case." said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy. "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. If you do, you are looking at a minimum of 10 years or more behind bars."

"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," said Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol for Homeland Security Investigations in New England. "HSI will never relent in our pursuit of bringing child predators to justice."

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. Through an ensuing 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. 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. During that meeting, Quraishi was arrested and found to be in possession of exactly $250.

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. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

If you or someone you know may be impacted or experiencing commercial sex trafficking, please contact [email protected].

Acting U.S. Attorney Levy and HSI SAC Krol made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian A. Fogerty of the Office's Civil Rights & Human Trafficking Unit and Lauren A. Graber of the Health Care Fraud Unit are prosecuting the case.