More child pornography charges filed against doctor

Staff report

NEWBERRY, Fla. – Chintan Vimalkumar Shah, 40, of Newberry, was arrested on child pornography charges on Wednesday and has now been charged with additional offenses; he was previously a nephrologist at UF Health Shands Hospital and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Nephrology Department, but all content has been removed from UF’s pages that were previously associated with Shah.

The original arrest arose from a CyberTip regarding a Kik account that shared a video of a nude pre-pubescent female. That video was reportedly 25 seconds in length and appeared to be a screen recording of a cell phone with a list of thumbnails of videos; every video appeared to feature a nude or partially nude pre-pubescent female child, and the majority were engaged in stimulating themselves. At the 11-second mark, a video is pulled up in full-screen view, depicting a pre-pubescent nude female child who is physically stimulating herself.

The investigation that led to Shah’s arrest is described in our previous article.

Alachua County Sheriff’s Detectives extracted data from Shah’s cell phone and reportedly found 34 child sexual abuse images that included conventional images and AI-generated images. One of these photos appeared to be a screenshot of the video that led to the original CyberTip; all three files reportedly show nude pre-pubescent female children, and two of them are stimulating themselves.

Shah was originally charged with possession of child pornography, possession of child pornography with the intent to promote the material, and unlawful use of a two-way communications device; the new charges include three counts of possession of child pornography and three counts related to knowingly reproducing, receiving, or disseminating child sexual abuse material with a computer. Shah has no criminal history, and his total bail is now set at $580,000.

The arrest report notes that additional charges are pending further review of Shah’s cell phone and other devices that were seized when he was arrested.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.