The term "monster" has been overused a lot. But there's really no other term that even begins to describe Farid Fata, a doctor from the Detroit area who is the mastermind of one of the most monstrous frauds ever operated by a single person in this country. Two years ago, Fata was arrested for turning his practice, Michigan Hematology and Oncology, into a health care fraud racket. Fata told perfectly healthy people they had cancer and subjected them to highly invasive and dangerous chemo regimens. He then stuck Medicare and private insurance companies with $34.7 million in fraudulent charges.
Fata pleaded guilty last summer to health care fraud, taking kickbacks from two hospices, and laundering the fraudulent insurance payments he received by using them to build a diagnostic testing facility. It wasn't nearly enough to keep him from being sentenced yesterday to 45 years in federal prison--which at his age amounts to a life sentence. Area U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade originally wanted him sentenced to 175 years, the maximum possible term under federal sentencing guidelines. However, she seemed content that the man at the center of what she called "the most serious fraud case" in American history will likely die in prison.
If you're wondering why McQuade was in such a bloodthirsty mood, consider what emerged from the investigation into Fata. Prosecutors amassed evidence that Fata had swindled 550 people. Either they got chemo treatments they didn't need--either because they were perfectly healthy or the amount they were getting wouldn't have done any good--or he undertreated patients who actually had cancer if he could make money off them.
The results were nothing less than catastrophic. When the sentencing hearing started earlier this week, Fata's victims revealed they had been left with brittle bones, high blood pressure, lost teeth and other health problems. A few patients were falsely told that Fata's treatment could save them, and as a result didn't even know they were terminal. Small wonder that when Fata pleaded guilty in August, McQuade let it be known she would not even consider a plea bargain.
Incredibly, Fata would likely still be going had one of his patients, Linda Flagg, not broken her leg in July 2013. Earlier in the day, Flagg had begun what she thought would be a lifetime of chemo treatments for multiple myeloma, a highly invasive cancer of the bone marrow. Fata was on vacation in his native Lebanon at the time, so one of his staff doctors, Soe Maunglay, went to see her. When Maunglay looked at Flagg's chart, he was stunned--a bone marrow biopsy revealed no evidence that Flagg had cancer, and Flagg's other numbers were perfectly normal. Maunglay knew what this meant--in all likelihood, Flagg didn't have cancer at all, and a healthy woman was being bombarded with poison.
Maunglay later told The Detroit News that myeloma begins with minor changes in blood chemistry--enough that a quack like Fata could hide his fraud with the required treatment. With the help of MHO's practice manager, George Karadsheh, Maunglay pored through Fata's records and found instance after instance of behavior that was unethical at best and fraudulent at worst. Karadsheh, who unmasked another health care fraud at a previous employer 15 years ago, called the FBI in August 2013, and Fata was arrested a few weeks later.
Fata spoke out for the first time at yesterday's sentencing, saying he gave in to a "self-destructive" quest for power and wealth. He also apologized to his patients, saying, "They came to me for compassion and care. I failed them." But then he had the nerve to ask for a 25-year sentence, saying his health was rather precarious and he didn't think he'd even survive that long. This coming from a guy who may have prevented his own patients from dying with dignity. Clearly, he doesn't understand the seriousness of what he did. Fortunately, federal judge Paul Borman recognized this for the horrible crime that it was, saying that a lengthy sentence was needed for Fata's "huge, horrific series of criminal acts."
After looking at the superseding indictment, it looks to me like Fata didn't really plead guilty out of remorse. He was charged with lying on his application to become an American citizen in 2008 when he said he had never committed a crime. In fact, he had turned MHO into a racket as early as 2007. Had he been convicted on all 23 charges in the original indictment, he could have faced deportation to Lebanon. The fact that this charge was dropped appears to be one of the few concessions prosecutors made when Fata pleaded guilty. It's about the only concession this monster deserved.