Sumit Satish Rastogi, a 39-year-old Indian man in Adelaide, Australia, was sentenced to 13 years and 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to 97 charges, including multiple charges of aggravated indecent assault and indecent filming, involving 61 victims.Rastogi worked at a massage parlor but was not qualified for the job. He committed these crimes between October 2021 and July 2022, when he was arrested.Judge Carmen Mateo detailed the 97 crimes Rastogi committed during his nine-month sentencing, ABC News reported. “You violated in some way 61 women who were trusting, unsuspecting and entitled to safety, respect and dignity,” she said.“When you sexually touched them or took photos that deliberately captured parts of their bodies, you abused their trust and treated them with a complete lack of respect and dignity, which is their right to confidentiality and non-exposure.“Your offending was common and at times frequent.”
Offense soured by confidence
The judge noted that Rastogi’s offending began to worsen as he became more confident in photographing women. She said: “The conduct of all your indecent assault victims was serious but it became particularly serious once you had the confidence to gain direct access to them by unreasonably interfering with their underwear.”“Every intrusive image you took was a serious breach of trust and completely unacceptable exploitation, and when you combine this behavior with physical sexual interference, your behavior presents another level of degradation and humiliation to your victim.“By June and July 2022 I believe your criminal behavior towards client victims was out of control and showed no signs of restraint until you were caught.”The judge said she took into account Rastogi’s psychiatrist’s diagnosis that he suffered from voyeurism. “He concluded that you met the diagnostic criteria for voyeurism because, over a period of six months, you experienced simultaneous intense sexual arousal while observing unsuspecting half-naked women,” she said.“[He] Saying you are voyeuristic is a clinically reasonable explanation for your offensive behavior, but it does not absolve you of responsibility for your actions. There is nothing to suggest that you were unable to control your actions or that you were unaware of the wrongness of such actions,” the judge said.Rastogi will be deported from Australia after serving his sentence.
