No Bail Reduction for Doctor Accused of Murder
A judge Monday refused to reduce bail for a La Verne doctor charged with murdering a pregnant colleague and then trying to conceal the crime by pushing her in a car off the Angeles Crest Highway.
Municipal Judge Laura A. Matz refused to reduced bail from $1 million to $400,000 for Dr. Kevin Anderson, 40, who has been in jail since the Nov. 11 death of Dr. Deepti Gupta.
Anderson, who has pleaded not guilty, admitted to strangling Gupta, a colleague at Pasadena’s Huntington Memorial Hospital, during an argument over whether to open a pediatric practice together and was seen pushing his colleague’s car off the cliff, detectives said.
The prosecutors Monday called the murder “cold and calculated” in asking the judge to deny the bail reduction request.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Marianne Thompson said Anderson lured his colleague to the remote mountain road and brought along a can of gasoline, which he poured into her sport utility vehicle to make it look like a traffic accident. He didn’t light the gasoline, Thompson said.
Thompson revealed that Gupta was pregnant and she said that Anderson knew that when he allegedly killed her. A district attorney’s spokeswoman said charges of multiple murder may be filed in the future.
Matz granted a request by the state Medical Board to bar Anderson from practicing medicine while the trial is pending if he is released on bail.
A preliminary hearing for Anderson is scheduled for Jan. 18.
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