Editor’s Note: The charges against the parties listed below were dismissed on Oct. 9, 2012. See story.
BANGOR, Maine — The Eastern Maine Medical Center physician accused of threatening to throw his infant daughter out of a second-story window entered not guilty pleas Wednesday to charges of domestic violence assault and criminal threatening.
Dr. Gurpreet Singh, 30, of Bangor did not enter the pleas in person at the Penobscot Judicial Center. His attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor, entered the pleas on his behalf.
Silverstein also entered not guilty pleas to the same charges on behalf of Singh’s father, Harbhajan Singh, 65, of Bangor.
The men’s next court dates have not been set.
Both men remain free on bail. Conditions, including provisions of no contact between the defendants and the victims, remain in place.
The Singhs were arrested July 20 after Bangor police responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at a residence off Stillwater Avenue, according to a previous report.
When Bangor police Officer Brian Smith arrived, a very upset and frantic woman told the officer that her husband and father-in-law threatened to throw her daughter out of their home’s second-story window, according to officials.
The 27-year-old woman was holding her baby when Smith arrived and gave it to the officer as she tried to explain what had happened. The woman told Smith that both men were arguing with her about the baby’s sex. The younger Singh had been very upset with her since the day he found out he was not going to have a son, she told the officer.
The issue over her not producing a boy became more volatile when an argument started over the sex of the baby again on July 20, and, during that argument, according to the mother, both men tried to grab the infant girl from her arms and threatened to throw her out of the second-story window.
The younger Singh began working at EMMC on July 22, according to a previous report. His employment will continue while the case moves forward, a hospital spokesman said earlier this month.
If convicted, father and son each faces up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $2,000.
So? Since when did parents making threats become against the law? My folks would do the same thing.
Are you serious? My parents would only threaten a spanking – never once did my father threaten to throw his infant daughter out a second story window because she was born a female. Considering this man is a doctor, would you want someone as heartless as that helping you? I certainly do not.
I think culture and upbringing have a lot more to do with his actions rather than being heartless. I also think that his profession has nothing to do with the case.
Yes I know its wrong but going after every parent who has threatened their child with violence is a bit much.
Yeah? You know a lot of people that threaten babies with death? Maybe they are just trying to intimidate the baby. To have a mother afraid enough that cops are called and to hand the baby over to a police officer, means its a lot more than a idle threat.
Let me give you some advice. Don’t put the medical community on a pedestal and take everything with a grain of salt. They are one of the worst communities out of any profession, ask any academic and the majority will agree. Most people simply do not have enough exposure to realize it and naively and blindly trust them, it’s a mistake.
It’s definitely a cultural thing. Daughters are burdensome things, what with dowries and weddings, and they can’t help support their elders in their old age like a son could (one child policy in China is a good example).
In large parts of the Muslim world, women are circumcised (by women), and if a wife is raped, she can be, and often is, hanged or buried up to her neck and stoned to death for “adultery”!
Too many people believe that the whole world thinks like Americans do…..
You cant help the blind see, even if you give them glasses. Trust me. I try all the time.
If your parents threatened you with a spanking, then the threat is in essence the same and thus the charge should be be the same. A threat is a threat and they are all illegal.
If your parents did spank you, then, by definition of the law, they assaulted you.
Due to the nature of things, if we are to charge one person for making a threat, all people who makes threats must be charged to keep the law fair, as it is designed to be. I guess we better lock everyone up. I cant think of a single person I have ever met that hasn’t likely made a threatening comment in anger as its a natural human behavior.
I was threatened, mentally abused and physically beaten often as a child. People in a place able to assist me did nothing. As far as the law and society was concerned, my father was just giving me some good old fashioned parental justice. But now, you even threaten violence and its over with. You dont even have to commit violent acts anymore. Funny, people exist in a violent world, where there are constant wars, where violence in the media and everywhere desensitizes us and where those who commit violent acts in the name of “justice” are praised and yet, despite humanities lasting obsession with and love of violence, if you, the civilian even threaten violence, that is it. Its over. We are locking you up. Seems a bit silly to me.
So, lets just throw everyone in jail because they might do something. I find a very proactive approach to law is the best answer to prevent crimes from possibly happening.
Now, you may feel free to offer some rebuttal, some twisted logic about how some threats are different because of the level of violence threatened, or because he is a doctor he should be above such things or that somehow in some cases (your parents threatening you with a spanking) its acceptable because of the unlikelyhood of the violence occurring or whatever but, rest assured, it doesn’t matter. A threat is a threat. No matter how big, or how small. They are all the same, in the end.
In conclusion, we either need to lock up the world, or figure out a way to do things differently. Perhaps those who study and shape the law should also study history and philosophy?
These are our doctors.
The guy is trying to grab and threatening to throw his own baby daughter out the window to her death, because shes female. This a person.. as a stranger.. that you trust putting your life’s hands in.
The level of incompetence and unprofessional ism in the medical community is shocking.
Most people don’t join to help people. They join to make good money as its big business billing insurance. As a result we have a lot of twisted, desensitized people working in medicine that really shouldn’t be.
Not much regard for life . Don’t want him working on me , for some reason I don’t think he’s into it. He doesn’t happen to be an abortionist does he ?
http://www.wvii.com/stories.html?SKU=20120815170606&textsize=large
For some strange reason bdn won’t allow me to even type in a comment for approval on the recent story covering the triple homicide.. so I posted it here.
“For some strange reason?” I would say that’s probably because BDN has decided at an editorial level that it doesn’t want to invite speculation about the alleged perpetrator in that case until the Bangor Police Department gives the OK. You’ve linked to an article that lists him by name.
Oh god what are we to do?! God forbid people re-read an article that’s already been posted about who the car belongs to… yeah, people are always better left in the dark when there’s a murderer running around their small city.
That has absolutely nothing to do with this story.
really???!!!!!
How some of you can justify this in your head is beyond me…I do understand the rational that it will probably be hard to convict someone based on a “threat”, and I do understand that there are many cultures out there that do not favor having a baby girl, but the thing that I find most concerning is if this man is a medical doctor, why is he yelling at his wife about the sex of the baby? Shouldn’t he have learned in biology 101 that the man determines the sex of the baby??? Shouldn’t you be having an argument with your own sperm buddy?