By Ken Serrano

Gannett, New Jersey - A man accused of giving an exotic dancer from South Plainfield a severed human hand stolen while he was a medical student pleaded guilty to theft Thursday, part of a plea deal that will spare him jail time.

Ahmed Rashed, 27, was charged in September with second- and third-degree theft for severing and taking the left hand from a cadaver in May or June of 2002 while he was a first-year student at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

In Superior Court, New Brunswick, Rashed pleaded guilty to the third-degree charge of stealing research materials. The second-degree charge of the unlawful taking of human remains, which carried a maximum prison term of 10 years, will be dropped in exchange for his plea, prosecutors said.

He is due to receive probation at his March 1 sentencing hearing. As part of the plea agreement, he has agreed not to seek medical licensure in New Jersey during his probation period, said Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Judson Hamlin.

The prosecutor's office is seeking a probation term of five years, Hamlin said.

Rashed's attorney, Kalman Geist of West Paterson, declined comment after the hearing before Judge Frederick DeVesa. Rashed refused to speak to reporters.

Geist originally sought pretrial intervention for Rashed, a program that leads to criminal records being erased if conditions are met.

But Ronald Abramowitz, executive assistant Middlesex County prosecutor, said, "He was never a candidate."

The part of the plea deal in which Rashed agreed not to seek licensing in New Jersey is rare, Abramowitz said.

"We usually leave licensing issues to licensing agencies," he said. "But, we felt that what he did was so egregious, we took the unusual step of putting in this condition."

Abramowitz could not say how the conviction will affect Rashed's medical license in other states.

Rashed, formerly of Cranford, served as a resident in the department of Emergency Medicine at King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles at the time of his arrest. He remains free on bail.

He has since moved to Texas, Abramowitz said.

In November, Geist called Rashed a dedicated medical professional who worked in an emergency room in the Watts section of Los Angeles.

"Dr. Rashed has probably saved the lives of over 150 people in the last couple of years," Geist said.

Rashed initially rejected the plea deal he agreed to Thursday.

The exotic dancer, Linda Kay, 31, was indicted on charges of receiving stolen human remains, a second-degree offense, and receiving stolen property necessary for research, a third-degree charge. She has applied for pretrial intervention.

Abramowitz said the prosecutor's office has no plans to oppose that application.

Kay, a dancer at Hott22, an all-nude juice bar on Route 22 in Union, is free on $50,000 bail.

Police went to Kay's house at 28 Diana Drive in South Plainfield on July 21 in response to a report of a man trying to commit suicide with a hammer. The man was not there, but the officers found the hand preserved in a foot-tall mason jar of formaldehyde on a basement table.

Rashed gave her the severed hand in formaldehyde at the strip club, Abramowitz said.

The cadaver was cremated after being used in classes, he said.

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