The trial of a Lebanese-American doctor accused of falsely diagnosing cancer and over treating genuine cancer patients to turn a profit began Tuesday in Detriot, with a 175-year prison sentence a possible outcome.
Dr. Farid Fata, aged 50, pled guilty to fraud after lying to his patients and insurance companies to make a personal profit of millions of dollars.
He has been accused in a criminal complaint of endangering people's safety by falsely diagnosing cancer, prescribing unnecessary chemotherapy and other treatments, and of over treating patients who did require them.
Many of Fata’s patients now suffer from side effects due to the overtreatment with chemo, hydration, iron infusions, blood transfusions, steroid injections and radiation treatments.
The doctor, who lived in Michigan with his wife Samar and their three children, had allegedly prescribed over 9,000 unnecessary injections and infusions to more than 500 patients over a six-year span and received $62 million from Medicare; he billed for more than $150 million.
His wife and three children have reportedly fled to Lebanon.
Fata faces the possibility of a 175-year prison sentence, but his attorneys want that lowered to 25 years.
He was indicted in 2013 on a charge of health care fraud and admitted last year to “intentionally and wrongfully diagnosing healthy people with cancer and giving them chemotherapy drugs for the purpose of making a profit.”
In 2014, he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of health care fraud, two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to pay and receive bribes.
In total, Dr. Fata has pleaded guilty to 16 counts of Medicare-related fraud. Prosecutors have accused him of submitting “claims for services that were medically unnecessary,” including administering chemotherapy “to patients in remission.”
“It was my choice ... I knew that it was medically unnecessary,” Fata had said during his guilty plea.
The doctor received a Bachelor of Science from the Lebanese University in 1992 and completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Maimonides Medical Center, State University of New York, Brooklyn, NY, in 1996.
He attended Cornell University Medical College, NY and completed his Hematology Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1999.
Dr. Fata is also the owner and operator of Michigan Hematology Oncology Center, he was voted by his peers to be one of the "Top Doc's" in Hematology and Oncology in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 by Hour Detroit Magazine and has received numerous awards including: "Outstanding First Year Resident," "Intern of the Year," and multiple clinical research awards.
