WARR ACRES, OK (TIP): An Indian American Dr. Nareshkumar G. Patel, 62, was arrested Tuesday, December 9, at his Warr Acres clinic. The arrest was the result of an undercover operation involving three female investigators who posed as patients. The Oklahoma physician was arrested on charges of fraud, telling women they were pregnant when they were not, and then giving them abortion-inducing drugs.

The arrest, made at Patel’s Warr Acres clinic, was the result of an undercover operation involving three female investigators who posed as patients. “This type of fraudulent activity and blatant disregard for the health and well-being of Oklahoma women will not be tolerated,” Attorney General Scott Pruitt said after Patel’s arrest. “Oklahoma women should be able to trust that the advice they receive from their physicians is truthful, accurate and does not jeopardize their health.” An Oklahoma County judge on Dec. 8 authorized Patel’s arrest. Prosecutors said he will be charged with three counts of obtaining money under a false pretense. If convicted of all three counts, he could be sentenced up to three years in jail.

The undercover operation began June 4 when an investigator from the state medical licensure board went to the clinic, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. An Oklahoma City police detective visited the clinic Oct. 16 and an Oklahoma attorney general agent visited the clinic Oct. 22, newsOK.com reported. All three women were not pregnant. Each time, Patel gave the woman an ultrasound, told her she was pregnant and gave her five RU-486 pills to induce an abortion, according to the affidavit.

Each paid $620 for the unnecessary procedure, according to the affidavit. Each time, the investigator secretly recorded Patel inside the clinic, according to the affidavit. The complaint that led to the investigation came from a sister of a former patient who paid $520 for a medical abortion procedure in August 2011. The former patient, Pamela Michelle King, died four months later of complications from cervical cancer. The doctor who cared for her at the time of her death reported she had not been pregnant within the past year. Patel has been the center of controversy repeatedly since getting his medical license in Oklahoma in May 1984. In 1992, he allegedly burned 55 aborted fetuses in a field east of Shawnee. He was investigated over the incident but never charged.

He admitted burning aborted fetuses in 1992, saying he had run out of storage space after a hospital stopped letting him use an incinerator. Patel told the state medical licensure board he and his office manager took the fetuses to an abandoned recreational vehicle park he owned near Shawnee and he set fire to them on a gravel road. Patel was arrested the following year when a patient accused him of sexually assaulting her. He denied her accusation. He was acquitted of two felony counts at a jury trial in 1994, newsOK.com reported. Patel went to medical school in India before moving to the United States in 1978. He had further medical training at a New Jersey hospital before moving to Oklahoma in 1984.