An Indian man working in Australia as a massage therapist has been sent to prison for sexually assaulting 61 victims.
Sumit Satish Rastogi, 39, an Indian man in Adelaide, Australia, was sentenced to 13 years and 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to 97 offences, including multiple counts of indecent assault and indecent photography involving 61 victims.Rastogi was working in a massage parlor even though he was not qualified for the job. He committed the crimes between October 2021 and July 2022 when he was arrested.According to ABC News, Judge Carmen Mateo detailed each of the 97 crimes Rastogi committed over a nine-month period during sentencing. “You violated, in one way or another, 61 women who were trusted, unwary, and had a right to safety, respect and dignity,” she said.“You abused their trust and treated them with a complete lack of respect and dignity when you touched them sexually or took photographs that deliberately captured parts of their bodies, which they have a right to remain private and undisclosed.“Your abusive behavior was regular and, at times, prolific.”
The crime worsened with confidence
The judge noted that Rastogi’s crime began to worsen because he became confident in photographing women. She said: “All of your behaviors in indecently assaulting your victims were serious, but they became particularly serious once you gained the confidence to unjustifiably interfere with their underwear to gain direct access to them.”
“Every offensive photo you took involved a gross breach of trust and was completely unacceptably exploitative, and when you couple this behavior with physical sexual intrusiveness, your behavior takes on another level of depravity and degradation to your victims.“By June and July 2022, I would describe your abuse of customer victims as out of control and showing no signs of restraint until the moment of your arrest.”The judge said she took into account Rastogi’s psychiatrist’s diagnosis that he was suffering from voyeurism disorder. “It finds you meet the diagnostic criteria for voyeurism disorder because over a period of six months you experienced concurrent and intense sexual arousal from observing unexpected scantily clad women,” she said.“[He] He says your voyeurism disorder is a clinically plausible explanation for your abusive behavior, but it does not absolve you of responsibility for your behavior. “There is nothing to suggest that you were unable to control your conduct or that you were not aware of its wrongfulness,” the judge said.Rastogi will be deported from Australia once he has served his full sentence.
