An Indian national indicted for stalking by a federal grand jury was sentenced to 30 months in prison at a sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge James M. Moody on Thursday and faces immediate deportation upon his release.
Rahul Dasari, 30, who had been living in Memphis, was charged via information on June 17 with two counts of stalking after the FBI Little Rock office received information indicating that Dasari had stalked and harassed multiple victims over a two-year period using a phone and a computer. That same day, after waiving indictment, Dasari pleaded guilty to both counts.
According to court records, Dasari met an Arizona woman, referred to as "C.P.," through a social networking site in December 2018 and the two agreed to meet in Dallas. After an altercation, C.P. left, saying she wanted no further contact with him.
She told authorities that Dasari continued to call, text and email her with harassing messages, despite being told that she wished to have no further contact with him. According to court records, Dasari's conduct continued to escalate as he sent harassing communications to her, to her employer (victim 2), to numerous co-workers (victim 3), and to her father (victim 4), eventually sending more than 2,500 harassing communications in a 17-month period from Jan. 1, 2019, until May 29, 2020.
Between Oct. 3, 2019, and Dec. 9, 2o19, the affidavit said, Dasari sent more than 580 harassing emails to C.P.'s co-workers from 23 different email accounts. A search warrant revealed that Dasari had sent C.P. more than 1,950 emails from four different email addresses between Jan. 28, 2019, and Oct. 16, 2019, with 517 of the emails utilizing a tracking app that provided information including read date, time, location, duration, IP address and other location information.
From Feb. 19, 2020, to March 1, 2020, records showed Dasari used a random phone number-generating app to send 230 harassing communications to C.P. and victims 2, 3 and 4 from 19 different telephone numbers, with messages such as; "You (sic) daughter is a b***h," "Your daughter f***s boss," "She cheated on S****," "She cheated on L**," and similar text messages.
Dasari's attorneys, Omar Greene II of Little Rock and Gary Springstead of Grand Rapids, Mich., objected to a two-level sentencing enhancement contained in the presentence report, saying it violated the terms of a plea agreement between Dasari and the government. After reviewing the issue at length, Moody overruled the objection.
Dasari's attorneys also asked Moody to consider a sentence of time served for the 11 months Dasari has spent in the Greene County jail since his arrest in January. In a sentencing memorandum filed Nov. 4, Greene said Dasari is more vulnerable than the usual inmate and referred to a severe beating Dasari suffered at the hands of his cellmate that left permanent facial scars.
But, pointing out the egregious nature of the offense evidenced by the volume of harassing communications sent by Dasari, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant asked Moody to sentence Dasari to 30 months in prison.
"He tormented and tortured this woman simply because she didn't want to be in a relationship with him," Bryant said. "He contacted C.P. 2,194 times, one of her bosses 117 times, employees of that company, 581 times. ... He also contacted C.P.'s father multiple times."
Bryant said Dasari degraded C.P. to her father, her boss and her co-workers, the constant harassment forcing her to change jobs and move multiple times, only for the harassment to begin anew once Dasari located her.
"She's an educated person who had very well-paying jobs she had to leave when she had to relocate," she continued. "Now, she finds it hard to find a job because of what's happened to her."
Another reason for the sentence, Bryant said, apart from Dasari's conduct, was a need to send a message to others who might engage in similar behavior.
"I think we're going to see a lot more of this because people think they have the protection of anonymity," she said. "So we need the deterrent effect of this sentence on people."
Moody sentenced Dasari to 30 months in prison on each of the two counts to run concurrently, one year of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $40,000 in restitution. He also ordered Dasari to have no contact with any of the victims and said if he is deported upon completion of his prison sentence, he will not be allowed to reenter the U.S.
"This sentence is justified as Mr. Dasari's conduct spanned over a year and included victims other than those in the counts of conviction," Moody said. "I believe this 30-month sentence is the correct one for Mr. Dasari."