US doc accused of driving family off cliff asks for psychiatric help
July 10, 2023 17:00
![Dharmesh Patel with his wife](https://im.rediff.com/news/2023/jun/15live-doc.jpg)
Dharmesh Patel with his wife
A 41-year-old Indian-origin doctor in the US who faces sentencing for allegedly attempting to kill his wife and two minor children by "purposely" driving his Tesla car off the Pacific Coast Highway has asked for a mental health diversion instead of a prison term, a media report said.
Dharmesh Patel was charged in May with three counts of first-degree attempted murder after allegedly driving himself, his wife, and their two children -- the 4-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl -- off the Devil's Slide near California Highway 1 in his Tesla, KRON-TV reported on Saturday. They all survived the crash on January 3 this year.
Patel's wife maintains that her husband told his family he would drive off the cliff before the incident. The suspect claimed his Tesla Model Y was having tire issues when he drove off the 250-foot cliff in California.
"He drove off. He's depressed," Neha Patel said in an affidavit obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
"He's a doctor. He said he was going to drive off the cliff. He purposely drove off."
Patel pleaded not guilty and instead asked for a mental health diversion because of his major depressive disorder diagnosis, the report said. To be eligible for the programme, a suspect's mental disorder needs to be a "significant factor" in the criminal act, California law says.