Judge Rejects Plea of Doc Admitting Unnecessary Surgeries

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In a rare move, a federal court judge on Friday threw out the plea deal of a Bloomfield Hills neurosurgeon who admitted he performed unnecessary spinal surgeries in Michigan and California and cheated insurers out of $11 million.

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman said the agreement between federal prosecutors and lawyers for Dr. Aria Sabit failed to give him proper direction, according to reports by The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. The agreement would have sent Sabit to prison for up to 11 years and required him to make restitution to victims in the two states.

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Specifically, Borman said some of the victim impact statements weren’t filed until Friday, the day Sabit, 39, was to have been sentenced.

More than a dozen victims were at the federal courthouse for the sentencing. They went home without closure, and Sabit went back to jail, where the Afghan-born neurosurgeon has been held without bond since his arrest nearly a year ago after the government labeled him a flight risk.

He is accused of fraudulently billing and collecting some $11 million from Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance.

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Brian McKean, a Detroit lawyer whose firm represents two of Sabit’s victims, told the Free Press that Borman made the right decision in tossing out the plea agreement “until more facts are known, especially with respect to how Dr. Sabit’s misconduct has adversely affected his many victims.’

Sabit, who moved to Michigan in 2011 after he was convicted of similar fraud charges in California and surrendered his medical license there, operated the Michigan Brain and Spine Physicians Group, which had locations in Southfield, Clinton Township and Dearborn.

He obtained U.S. citizenship in 2013, and authorities have said that he obtained illegally after failing to disclose the fraud allegations in California, where more than two dozen medical malpractice lawsuits have been filed.

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