{"id":247598,"date":"2026-07-20T11:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247598\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T11:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:31:09","slug":"berks-county-doctor-pleads-guilty-to-sex-crimes-with-dozens-of-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247598\/","title":{"rendered":"Berks County doctor pleads guilty to sex crimes with dozens of children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PENNSYLVANIA (WHP) \u2014 A Berks County doctor pleaded guilty on Friday to several charges, including possession of child pornography and traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-edpa\/pr\/berks-county-doctor-pleads-guilty-child-sexual-exploitation-offenses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dr. Habib Bhatti, 44, of Barto<\/a>, was arrested in September 2025 after traveling across the U.S. to meet minors to engage in commercial sex acts, the DOJ said.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Bhatti was said to have recorded himself engaging in sexual acts with minors and possessed child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n<p>Court filings claimed that, from July to November of 2024, Bhatti used the internet to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor into sexual activity. In November, Bhatti traveled to California for illegal sexual acts with a pair of minors.<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ also noted that, in Philadelphia nearly a decade ago, Bhatti sexually exploited a pair of minors by persuading them to engage in sexually explicit conduct while he made visual depictions of the acts.<\/p>\n<p>He was found to have CSAM across multiple devices, with at least one victim being under the age of 12, the DOJ confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Bhatti further admitted to committing offenses involving additional underage girls, according to a news release. Bhatti would typically meet the children online and offer them money in exchange for sexual photos or for in-person sexual encounters.<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ said the kids were between 14 and 17 years old at the time.<\/p>\n<p>He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with a minimum of 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PENNSYLVANIA (WHP) \u2014 A Berks County doctor pleaded guilty on Friday to several charges, including possession of child&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-247598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247598","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=247598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}