{"id":246517,"date":"2026-07-18T08:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246517\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:57:08","slug":"pennsylvania-doctor-pleads-guilty-to-federal-child-sex-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246517\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania doctor pleads guilty to federal child sex crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(WHTM) \u2014 A Berks County doctor pleaded guilty Friday to federal child sex crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr. Habib Bhatti, 44, of Barto, was facing several federal charges including production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Bhatti travelled to California to engage in such conduct with two minor victims in November of 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A few years earlier, he was accused of persuading two other minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct so he could produce visual depictions thereof.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As part of the plea agreement, he admitted to committing offenses involving 24 additional minor girls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV devices;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"http:\/\/abc27.com\/streaming\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV devices<\/a><a data-ylk=\"slk:, and newer Samsung Smart TVs.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"http:\/\/abc27.com\/streaming\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">, and newer Samsung Smart TVs.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He will be sentenced in October and faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum term of life in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc27.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WHTM) \u2014 A Berks County doctor pleaded guilty Friday to federal child sex crimes. Dr. Habib Bhatti, 44,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81093,105480,58441,28,30,29,1755],"class_list":["post-246517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-federal-charges","tag-habib-bhatti","tag-office-for-the-eastern-district-of-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-sex-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}