Tufts Medical Center doctor fired after arrest in child-sex sting

Tufts Daily reports Tufts Medical Center fired Dr. Sadeq Ali Quraishi, an anesthesiologist, yesterday, three days after Homeland Security agents arrested him as part of the same sting operation that snared a convicted sex offender from Lexington.

Quraishi, 45, is currently in federal custody awaiting a detention hearing on Tuesday. He was arrested at a hotel in Waltham last Wednesday, according to records on file at US District Court in Boston. Like David Chris Cannon, arrested Thursday, also in Waltham, he was charged with attempted sex trafficking of a child.

Quraishi, who is also an intensive-care and nutrition specialist, had been at Tufts Medical Center since 2019, serving as vice chairman of its anesthesiology program and director of the Tufts Anesthesiology Research Center, as well as a professor at Tufts Medical School, according to his LinkedIn page. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, he helped lead efforts to find more ventilators and related equipment for seriously ill patients. He had previously worked for eight years at Mass. General in a variety of roles including as a doctor in the hospital's cardiac ICU.

According to an affidavit by a Homeland Security Investigations agent, Quraishi responded to a fake ad agents placed Tuesday on a Web site believed to advertise young girls for sex. The ad was a different one than the one placed the same day that Cannon allegedly responded to, but as with Cannon, when Quraishi allegedly contacted the number he was offered his choice of a 12-year-old girl, a 14-year-old girl, or both.

Quraishi, the affidavit states, agreed to pay $200 - or $250 without a condom - for time alone with the 14-year-old, including anal sex. But first, he needed bonafides, and allegedly asked "Uh, are you a cop?" The undercover Homeland Security agent replied "No way. just trying to make a living best way we know how."

"Oh, OK," Quraishi replied, the affidavit continues, adding that the agent then asked Quraishi if he were a cop. The are you/are you bantering continued, even as Quraishi was asking if "backdoor" action was OK.

9824 Number [Quraishi]: You've got me interested ... and you're absolutely not involved with any law enforcement in any way?

[Agent] fuck no. I was arrested in New mexico once when i was younger. that dont count i hope lol

9824 Number Lol no

[Agent] you not a serial killer right?

9824 Number Fuck no!

Quraishi then said he was in East Boston, but could be on his way soon, but he admitted to some guilt about the girl being just 14, the affidavit continues: "if you were to tell me she's 16 or older and just looks young enough to pass off for 14 that would be a different thing." The agent tried to convince him that "there is no guilt sex is a naruaal thing," but added that it wouldn't be a problem if Quraishi did change his mind and decided to call things off.

Quraishi got in his car and headed off, still texting what he thought was the girl's mother, keeping her posted as he got closer and finally arrived in the parking lot of a Waltham hotel, which was described only as "part of a national chain of hotels."

UC2 [an agent] and QURAISHI met in the hotel's parking lot. UC2 asked QURAISHI to show UC2 the cash to be paid for the commercial sex act. QURAISHI flashed a wad of cash from his pocket and showed it to UC2. UC2 gave QURAISHI a hotel key card and told him “no rough stuff” with her daughters. QURAISHI acknowledged UC2's request.

Following the exchange of the cash and the foregoing discussion, law enforcement officers arrested QURAISHI and took him into custody. Incident to arrests, law enforcement agents searched QURAISHI and found a cell phone. An agent called then called the 9824 Number and observed that the cell phone they seized from QURAISHI rang.

Innocent, etc.