The radiologist accused of driving his wife and two children off a cliff near Devil’s Slide in 2023 had his criminal case dismissed Monday after completing a two-year mental health diversion program tied to what defense psychologists described as a depression-driven psychotic break.
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Dharmesh Patel, 45, stood silently in a white shirt and red tie as San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Sharon K. Cho dismissed the three attempted murder charges hanging over him in the January 2023 crash. He then walked back to his wife in the courtroom gallery and left the building walking by her side.
With the charges dismissed, Patel will no longer face prosecution and is expected to receive his passport back shortly after it was confiscated by authorities.
In delivering her ruling, Cho referenced reports by Patel’s clinicians suggesting that he was “doing very well” in the diversion program. The program was established by state lawmakers in 2018 as a way to help stem the tide of mental illness in jails and prisons, usually by dismissing cases and offering treatment for the underlying conditions behind a defendant’s arrest. Patel plans to continue that treatment, the judge said.
The dismissal ends a case that began in early January 2023 when the family’s Tesla plunged some 330 feet off Highway 1 onto a rocky beach just south of Pacifica — a wreck so devastating that first responders called it a “miracle” anyone survived.
Patel initially pleaded not guilty, claiming the family’s Tesla had been beset by tire issues. Yet that narrative ran counter to statements Patel’s wife made to first responders that her husband was “depressed” and that “he purposely drove off” the cliff. Investigators also said the Tesla’s self-driving features did “not appear to be a contributing factor” in the incident.
At a mid-2024 hearing, psychologists testified that Patel appeared to have driven off the cliff in a desparate bid to kill his family, as the radiologist believed that his children — ages 4 and 7 at the time of the crash — were better off dead than being forced into sex trafficking by kidnappers he said were tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. His fears were rooted in delusions that also touched on the nation’s fentanyl crisis and the war in Ukraine, according to court testimony.
Multiple psychologists diagnosed Patel with major depressive disorder in the weeks and months following the crash. One clinician based his diagnosis on 18 tests given to Patel, as well as multiple discussions with him and his brother and sister. The lone psychologist called by prosecutors disagreed with that diagnosis, suggesting instead that Patel suffered from schizoaffective disorder and wasn’t ready for release.
Patel’s wife argued in open court that “we’re not a family without him.” In pleading for her husband’s release from jail and his admission into the diversion program, Neha Patel stressed she “will not hesitate to seek help when needed” under a treatment plan that relied, in part, on Dharmesh Patel’s family to report any signs of further mental instability to the court.
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“Not one witness came in to testify that Mr. Patel poses a risk of danger to society,” added Patel’s attorney, Joshua Bentley, during the mid-2024 hearing. He called the doctor “a decent human being, with zero criminal history.”
On Monday, Bentley declined to comment on the outcome of the case, and said his client did not wish to speak either. A call by this news outlet to Neha Patel’s attorney, who appeared by her side during the hearing and was seen smiling and hugging her afterward, was not returned.
Months after the crash, the Medical Board of California secured a court order barring Dharmesh Patel from practicing medicine while facing the attempted murder charges. A message left by this news outlet in regards to the status of his medical license with a spokesperson for the medical board Monday was not immediately returned.
Patel’s successful completion of the program comes as California tightens the reins on its mental health diversion laws. Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, judges will have a lower bar for denying entry into such programs, based on the level of risk that defendants pose to the surrounding community. That same law, Assembly Bill 46, initially excluded attempted murder charges from eligibility to a mental health diversion program, but that provision was removed as the bill worked its way through the legislature.
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe — who opposed Patel’s admission to the diversion program — said the radiologist received “good” reports from his psychiatrists over the last two years, and did well enough in the program to see the no-contact order between him and his family softened to a no-harassment order.
Still, Wagstaffe remains fervently opposed to the notion of defendants facing attempted murder charges from being eligible for such programs, saying they can allow people accused of nearly killing others to “get away without any accountability or punishment.” Patel, the district attorney added, “got the break of a lifetime.”
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at [email protected].
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