Farid Fata

Early life and career Farid Fata was born in Lebanon in 1965, to a Melkite Catholic family. After obtaining a medical degree there in 1992, he emigrated to the United States to begin his medical career. Fata served a residency at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, from 1993 to 1996. He then served as a fellow in hematology–oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan until 1999. Fata was an attending physician at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania, from 2000 to 2003.

Fata struck out on his own in 2003, opening Michigan Hematology–Oncology (MHO) in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Over the next decade, MHO grew to seven locations throughout Metro Detroit—in Rochester Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Clarkston, Sterling Heights, Troy, Lapeer and Oak Park. Fata became a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 2009.

Fata specialized in treating blood cancer. He owned his own laboratory, pharmacy and radiation treatment facility. At its peak, Fata's practice was treating 17,000 patients at its clinics. Fata acquired a sterling reputation as one of the best cancer specialists in the Detroit area. He was known for his aggressive approach to treatment, giving higher doses of chemotherapy drugs at a more frequent rate—a protocol he called "European protocol".

Fata's wife, Samar, helped run the business side of his practice as chief executive officer and chief financial officer of his companies. While authorities believe she was a party to the fraud, she was able to move back to Lebanon after her husband's arrest; they have since divorced. In 2010, veteran oncology nurse Angela Swantek went to MHO for an interview, but was stunned to see practices that her experience told her were "plain wrong". Swantek believed that Fata was pumping patients with drugs in hour-long chemotherapy sessions that should normally last much shorter periods, thus allowing him to prescribe unnecessarily high volumes of drugs. Swantek believed Fata was deliberately billing patients' insurance companies for more money, a classic fraud scenario. She complained to state authorities, but got no response until 2011, when she got a form letter under the authority of Bureau of Health Professions Acting Director Rae Ramsdell, of the State of Michigan's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, saying that there was no evidence to support an investigation into Fata.

Maunglay was already due to leave MHO the following month after catching Fata lying about the clinic's enrollment in a professional quality program. However, after discovering that a healthy woman was being given unnecessary chemotherapy, he felt that he needed to stop Fata. Knowing that Flagg's case, even as egregious as it was, would not be enough to shut down Fata's clinic, he needed to find more evidence of misconduct. Maunglay searched MHO's patient records and found numerous instances of unethical and potentially illegal behavior. For instance, Fata was treating several patients with IVIG, a drug intended to treat patients with specific immune deficiencies, when there was no apparent medical basis for it. Maunglay persuaded a nurse and a nurse practitioner to confront Fata. When Fata agreed to curb the use of IVIG, Maunglay believed that this was further evidence that Fata was a fraud. Later, he explained to the News that an honest doctor would never cut back on his own protocol solely because of staff and physician objections.

Several weeks later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stepped in on a tip from George Karadsheh, an MHO office manager. Karadsheh grew suspicious after clinical staff and other doctors began giving their notice without explanation and leaving the practice. When Karadsheh asked Maunglay why he was leaving, he told him that Fata kept insisting on aggressive chemo regimens, even for patients who did not need it. Karadsheh did not believe Maunglay at first, since he was aware of other clinical staff who provided care and oversight. However, Karadsheh recalled that many staff had expressed concerns about Fata's aggressive regimen.

Karadsheh conducted his own investigation and interviewed several staff. The first thing he noticed was that Fata's treatment-to-consultation ratio was different from those of other doctors. Karadsheh went back to Maunglay, who suggested that he check on Fata's use of IVIG. A nurse reported to Karadsheh that she discovered that in one week, 38 out of 40 patients who received IVIG did not need or did not qualify for the drug. She took this information to Maunglay, who disclosed it to Karadsheh during his investigation. Karadsheh took his findings to the Detroit office of the FBI and sued Fata, MHO, and several related entities under the False Claims Act on August 5; he was thus entitled to a significant financial reward. Maunglay said that Karadsheh had done "a great service" because of his past experience detecting fraud. Fata was arrested the next day for health care fraud. He was confined to jail pending trial; had he been released, he would have been confined to his home in Oakland Township and barred from practicing medicine.

Federal investigators amassed evidence that Fata had bullied or deceived 553 people into getting chemotherapy treatments they did not need, causing the patients' insurance companies and Medicare to pay $34 million in fraudulent and unnecessary claims. They also found that Fata took kickbacks from two local hospices and poured Medicare and private insurance proceeds into his own diagnostic testing facility, where he ordered unnecessary tests. On the basis of these findings, Barbara McQuade, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, obtained a series of superseding indictments against Fata. They culminated in a 23-count indictment charging Fata with health care fraud, conspiracy to take and receive kickbacks, money laundering, and unlawfully procuring naturalization. The last charge was added because McQuade contended Fata had concealed the extent of his fraud from immigration authorities when he applied for citizenship. If he had been convicted on all charges, Fata would have faced a maximum of 175 years in prison, plus the prospect of having his naturalization revoked. Nonetheless, McQuade sought the maximum possible sentence of 175 years in prison. Her office denounced Fata as "the most egregious fraudster in the history of this country", calling his crimes more egregious than those of Bernie Madoff. Fata also faces myriad civil suits. Maunglay, who did not file a lawsuit, will not take any financial reward.

Fata filed a 28 U.S.C. §2255 motion requesting that his guilty plea be tossed in May 2018, based on the assertion that he received poor legal advice that resulted in his guilty plea and that he has always maintained his innocence, despite his admission of guilt during his sentencing hearing. He stated in the filing, "...my guilty pleas were not the result of my actually being guilty. From day one to the present, I have steadfastly maintained my innocence." . The District Court rejected Fata's motion on May 27, 2020, after determining that Fata had submitted forged documents, and denied him a certificate of appealability. His attempt to obtain a certificate of appealability was denied by the appeals court in November 2020.

Other Fata's story was featured in the first half of the September 2016 episode "Diagnosis: Blood Money / Chicago Jailbreak", of the crime series American Greed. A 2018 episode of Whistleblower covered the Fata case, with an emphasis on Karadsheh's and Maungley's roles in exposing the fraud. In 2020, Fata became the subject of season 2 of the podcast Dr. Death.