AP News, March 2nd, 2007
A young doctor who admitted to severing a hand from a cadaver as a medical student, then giving it to a stripper, was sentenced Thursday to 15 months of probation.
Ahmed Rashed, 27, pleaded guilty last month to a reduced charge of third-degree theft. If he violates the terms of his probation, he could be brought back to court and sentenced to as many as five years in prison. He also was fined $5,000.
Rashed's attorney, Kalman Geist, had asked for 16 months' probation, a period that would coincide with the completion of his medical residency. Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Judson Hamlin had asked for five years' probation.
Rashed also is prohibited from seeking a license to practice medicine in New Jersey while he is on probation.
In court, Rashed apologized, saying that he meant no harm and that he has outgrown the immaturity he displayed.
"It does not excuse the action," he said.
Geist said he wants to put the incident behind him: "He made a silly mistake."
Rashed gave the hand to exotic dancer Linda Kay, 31, during a visit to the club where she worked. He got to know her while he was a first-year medical student in 2002. She wanted a cadaver's hand, authorities said, and he complied.
Geist said his client removed the hand from a cadaver at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark that was scheduled for cremation, and was unaware that what he did was illegal. He graduated in 2005.
Authorities said the hand was found in a jar on Kay's dresser in her home last summer. Friends have said she called it "Freddy."
Kay was charged with unlawful disposal of human remains. She enrolled in a counseling program, and if she complies with its terms for one year, her criminal record will be erased.
Rashed had been in a residency program at Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles, but will continue his residency at Maimonides Medical Center in New York.
