A doctor who drove his kids off a cliff in a failed murder-suicide bid during a mental health episode will not stand trial.
Dharmesh Patel, 42, pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of his wife Neha and their two children, aged 4 and 7, on January 2.
The deranged father intentionally drove their Tesla off a 330ft cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway in Devil’s Slide in San Mateo, California.
His hospitalized family allegedly told paramedics, ‘he tried to kill us’, but his wife later begged authorities to let him come home.
Judge Susan Jakubowski agreed to this request due to his actions being caused by a mental health episode, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office said.
‘Weighing all factors, the court determined the defendant was suitable and granted the defense request for mental health diversion,’ judge Jakubowski ruled.
She told San Mateo County Superior Court that Patel’s major depressive disorder ‘has the required nexus to the criminal conduct’, after hearing from psychologists.
Patel must follow a strict two-year treatment plan by a team of psychologists led by James Armontrout, director of the Stanford Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship, to avoid criminal prosecution.
He and will stay in jail several more weeks as a ‘bridging period’ and then be released to live with his parents in Belmont.
Patel must stay under house arrest for two months except for treatment and court dates, and every move he makes will be tracked by an ankle monitor.
He must appear in court every week for progress reports and be tested twice a week ‘to show medication compliance’ with his treatment plan.
He will be banned form drinking alcohol or taking any drugs, must surrender his driver’s license and passport, and cannot drive or possess weapons.
Patel will face court on July 1 to iron out the details of his release and treatment plan.
Psychologists testified Patel appeared increasingly delusional in the days before the crash, culminating in a one-time psychotic episode.
The court heard Patel said he drove his children off the cliff because he feared they would be sex-trafficked.
He was spiraling into a psychotic break with worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fentanyl crisis, child sex trafficking, and Jeffrey Epstein.
Neha said he often sent her news articles about those topics and struggled to sleep at night.
‘It was paranoid and kind of delusional thinking that he acted on at the time to protect his family from a worse fate,’ expert witness Dr Mark Patterson told the court.
‘He was concerned that his children were at risk of being kidnapped, possibly for sexual molestation… There were concerns surrounding the explosion of fentanyl in this country and the war in Ukraine.’
The psychologist said Patel’s psychosis peaked in the days before the car crash, adding that he had been hearing footsteps and thought he was followed.
Patterson said he believed the 42-year-old was qualified for treatment under the mental health diversion law.
‘I see him as someone who is very motivated and amenable to treatment,’ he said.
He stopped having delusions while being held without bail at the San Mateo County jail, Patterson testified, adding, ‘he still feels a lot of remorse’.
Patel’s wife begged for his release – stressing that she and her children ‘need him in our life.’
As Patel’s attorney made their case, members his wife’s family sat in to show their support.
‘Mr Patel is a good man,’ Patel’s attorney, Joshua Bentley, said during a hearing on May 10 – the last of three to determine whether Patel should be admitted into a program that would have all of his criminal charges dismissed.
He acknowledged the ‘incredibly serious’ nature of the charges, but stressed Patel was a perfect candidate for the program.
The medical treatment would entail group and individual therapy sessions, as well as sessions with a psychotherapist.
The psychologist was one of several to diagnose Patel with major depressive disorder in the wake the crash near Half Moon Bay, after which every member of the family survived but were left seriously injured.
While making his argument, Bentley produced 47 letters of support portrayed as signs that Patel was ‘beloved by his community’, as Patel’s parents and siblings and members of his wife’s family sat in court offering support.
Under the plan, Patel would spend at least two months in an intensive outpatient program at El Camino Health, a non-profit hospital with 420 beds in scenic Mountain View.
He would also attend weekly therapy sessions with at least two clinicians while being allowed back home, on the condition he be outfitted with a GPS monitoring device and largely barred from leaving San Mateo County.
He would also be barred from practicing medicine, as well as driving.
Prosecutors, who charged Dharmesh Patel with three counts of attempted murder, argued the two-year program would leave both his family and the community in danger from a man who long masked his symptoms and showed a reluctance to take antipsychotic medication.
Patel’s parents and siblings, and members of his wife’s family sat in court offering Patel support, as the judge weighed his fate.
‘As his wife and two children were plunging form that cliff, what is most frightening is that nobody saw this coming,’ Deputy District Attorney Dominique Davis told San Mateo Superior Court Judge Jakubowski during proceedings in Redwood City.
She said the risk of releasing him was the ‘total annihilation of his entire family’.
Two months after the near-fatal crash, while in jail awaiting prosecution, ‘he was already asking why he had to take medications all the time’, Davis added.
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe aired similar arguments.
Bentley, sitting beside his client who was wearing red prison fatigues and sandals with both hands cuffed, acknowledged that there is ‘no question this is an incredibly serious case, that the charges are very, very serious, that the actions are very, very serious’.
But Bentley said his client had no criminal history and described him as a loving family man.
After calling Patel ‘a good man,’ Bentley further asserted: ‘This was not him. This was 100 percent a mental health episode.’
He said doctors only later discovered he suffers major depressive disorder with psychotic features, which ‘came on quick’ and that ‘nobody saw coming.’
During earlier hearings, experts who met with Patel said he had been hearing footsteps and thought he was being followed in the weeks before the crash, San Francisco Chronicle reported.
But the prosecution cited its own expert who diagnosed him a more severe schizoaffective disorder, which can be treated with psychotropics.
They said that despite being described by his family as generally even-keeled and stable, he’d expressed paranoid, delusional thoughts for over a year, obsessing over the war in Ukraine, the fentanyl crisis, and concerns that his children would be sex trafficked.
After his arrest, he initially talked about having a flat tire and said the car skidded out of control on a narrow road, and only started discussing mental issues when speaking with a doctor for the defense.
Bentley said the Mental Health Diversion will address all of his issues, receiving intensive outpatient treatment from a mental health team that will report back to the court on a weekly basis.
‘He has been in remission for over a year,’ Bentley tried to assure the judge.
The prosecutor countered that Patel has a history of being ‘unreliable in reporting symptoms,’ and tells people ‘whatever he thinks will help him at the time.’
In court last month, his wife begged prosecutors to drop the charges in favor of the diversion program.
‘We need him in our life,’ she said, before blaming the crash on ‘a mental health episode beyond any of our understanding or control,’ Mercury News reported.
She also promised that ‘things will be different’ if her husband is allowed to return home to their family.
Patel’s wife said his return will not only ‘restore him back to himself, but it will restore the health and wellness of our entire family.’
Emphasizing the importance of the ‘health and safety’ of her family, she said that she ‘will not hesitate to seek help when needed.’
‘We need — we need him in our life,’ Patel’s wife added. ‘We’re not a family without him.’