Doctor who knowingly misdiagnosed his patients with cancer sentenced to jail

This case is one of the reasons people hardly trust doctors and their judgements.


A Michigan, US-based doctor, Farid Fata who misdiagnosed patients with cancer and then bombarded them with unnecessary treatments had to face his victims — who lost their health, savings and trust — at an emotional sentencing hearing that opened on Monday.

Fata was arrested in 2013 and charged in what a prosecutor said was the "most egregious" case of health-care fraud in U.S. history, after his patient,  a disabled auto worker, Robert Sobieray went to a different oncologist and learned that he'd never even had cancer.

In 2010, Fata diagnosed Sobieray with a rare blood cancer and subjected him to monthly infusions of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation — expensive treatments that he said made his health go worse.

Dr. Farid Fata has been using patients as cash cows, telling some of them they were deathly ill with diseases they didn't actually have.

Federal prosecutors were seeking a 175-year sentence for the oncologist who pleaded guilty to fraud in September, admitting he raked in millions from insurance companies for needless treatments at seven clinics in eastern Michigan.

Fata lived in a sprawling mansion in ritzy Oakland Township and ran seven upscale clinics across eastern Michigan.

The hearing that will determine whether he spends the rest of his life in prison opened on Monday in a federal court in Detroit with a parade of victims set to testify against Fata, who turned a small one-doctor office into a lucrative medical empire in less than a decade.


Just last month, in a sentencing memo from prosecutors, it was  revealed for the first time that a total of 553 people allegedly got unnecessary treatment — amounting to 9,000 injections or infusions that cost insurance companies and patients millions.


Dr. Fata and co-defendants must pay 8 million dollars to 43 claimants. The co-defendants in the civil suits were Crittenton Hospital, Trinity Health, McLaren Health Care, and his own practice, Michigan Hematology and Oncology. The settlement covers 28 civil suits and the terms have been approved by a judge in Michigan. This civil suit settlement is in addition to an 11.7-million dollar federal restitution fund for Fata’s victims.


Fata’s former colleagues were mortified at Fata’s actions.

The Lebanese Examiner alleged that Lebanese-born Farid Fata planned to buy a castle in Adma, Lebanon with the money he fraudulently acquired. The feds said that Farid Fata raked in over 34-million dollars from his fraud scam.

Farid Fata’s victims had once hoped for a life sentence for their tormentor, but he was given just 45 years, and with Michigan’s cap for financial compensation, many of his victims will not even receive enough money from his seized estate to pay for the care they need as a result of his unethical practices… the victims that are still alive, that is.

Sources: Inquisitr, NBC News, Lebanese Examiner