WISCONSIN (WTAQ-WLUK) – A state appeals court rejected the latest motion by a man sentenced to prison for spiking his girlfriend’s drink in the attempt to cause a miscarriage.
Manishkumar Patel, 49, who was on the run for a decade before being arrested, was sentenced in 2018 to 22 years in prison. After an appeal, Patel was resentenced in 2021 to 21 years in prison, but again appealed.
In a three-page decision issued Tuesday, the appeals court dismissed the case.
“Here, we agree with counsel’s analysis and conclusion that any challenge to the sentence would lack arguable merit. In particular, we agree that the sentence was legal, that it was well within the maximum available penalty for a Class B felony, that the correct amount of sentence credit was applied, and that the circuit court rationally explained why it imposed the sentence based upon relevant sentencing factors,” the court wrote.
Evidence showed Patel put RU-486 in the woman’s smoothie. The woman did not ingest the drink, but later miscarried.
Patel skipped town after the charges were filed in 2007, forfeiting a $750,000 cash bond. He said he skipped town to go to India to visit his ailing father. He was arrested in 2017 in New York and was returned to Outagamie County, where a $50 million cash bond was set.
Patel is currently housed at the Dodge Correctional Institution, state records show.
