Spine surgeon Aria Sabit, M.D., is sitting in a Michigan jail awaiting trial on federal healthcare fraud charges and trying to procure U.S. citizenship in an unlawful manner. He’s sitting in jail because prosecutors convinced a federal magistrate that Sabit would flee the country in a scheme worthy of an Ian Fleming novel.
The federal government says Aria surrendered his medical license in California, effective in 2014, and moved to Michigan, where he was licensed to practice medicine in March 2011. There he opened the Southfield-based Michigan Brain & Spine Physicians Group and began performing spine surgeries.
Or so he claimed. According to a federal indictment, Sabit performed lumbar fusion surgery on a number of patients, but didn’t actually install any hardware. Then he allegedly committed the worst sin—billing Medicare for work that wasn’t done.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged him with false claims. After a detention hearing on December 4, 2014, the magistrate ordered Sabit held in jail. Prosecutors told the judge they fear he is a flight risk and would try to return to his native Afghanistan to start a hospital and drill for oil. They said he is a member of a politically prominent family.
After his detention, a federal grand jury indicted him on 18 counts of fraud and 1 count of “unlawful procurement of naturalization” in a 20-page indictment. That happened on December 9, 2014.
Beginning in approximately 2011, and continuing through November 2014, Sabit, according to the indictment, convinced patients to undergo spinal fusion surgeries, “which were either medically unnecessary or never rendered and then billed public and private insurance programs for the fraudulent services.”
According to the government’s case against him, Sabit allegedly dictated surgical notes that he had performed various spine surgeries, which included laminectomies, discectomies or other procedures, with instrumentation—but which he never actually conducted.
The government is claiming that Sabit’s operative reports and treatment records allegedly contained false statements about the diagnosis for the patient, the procedure performed, and the instrumentation used in the procedure. Sabit would also order spinal injections and simultaneously schedule the patient for surgery, ”thus not waiting a sufficient amount of time to lapse to ascertain if the non-invasive treatment was successful.”
Sabit claimed he used Zimmer Holdings, Inc.’s Transfacet Screw System. But post-operative X-ray and MRI examinations by other spine surgeons revealed that no medical device had been placed in or around the patient’s spine.
“Subsequently, after continuing pain, all patients received second opinions from other doctors stating that no such spinal fusion had been performed and there was no evidence of any screw, or any medical device in the spinal column of the patient, ” Special Agent Peter Hayes of the FBI wrote in a court filing.
In all, Sabit billed almost $33 million and was paid more than $1.8 million, according to the criminal complaint. He performed surgery on almost everyone who walked through his office, an unnamed employee told an FBI agent.
“He had swagger off the charts, ” said Tonocca Scott, one of his former patients said of the 40-year-old Sabit in a published interview. “His hair was pulled back. He could have been a guy in a James Bond movie. Why would I go to anybody else?”
Sabit in California—PODS, Lawsuits and Kickback Charges
This isn’t the first time the Justice Department had dealings with Sabit or the first time OTW has reported on his activities.
Between 2009 and 2010, Sabit was the subject of more than two dozen medical malpractice lawsuits in California. Special Agent Hayes testified at Sabit’s detention hearing in Michigan that Sabit performed over 200 spinal fusion surgeries in California from June 2009 to December 2010 and that the DOJ had filed a Civil Complaint against him in September 2014.
Hayes also said that DOJ presently has an ongoing criminal investigation of Sabit in California.
Anti-POD Poster Child
During Sabit’s detention hearing prosecutors also told the judge that the DOJ’s California investigation of Sabit was focused on his participation in a physician-owned-distributorship (POD), which owned a particular device—an Apex pedicle screw made by Reliance Medical.
After buying into the POD, Hayes said Sabit began to use the Apex in 90% of his surgeries, and earned over $400, 000. He added that Sabit had been subject to civil kickback charges in September 2014 based on California kickback allegations and that Federal California criminal kickback charges are likely coming.
A Flight Risk: From Dubai to Kabul to London
Accusations of unnecessary surgeries and false claims are not uncommon. But here is where Sabit is different and the story turns into an international thriller.
The government labeled Sabit a flight risk, noting that he was questioned in September in Atlanta while trying to fly to Dubai. There he allegedly told a customs officer that he owned a company involved in mining in Afghanistan. In his luggage, officers found a ruby and a 3.6-carat emerald, according to the complaint.
Dubai Informant
Special Agent Hayes testified that the FBI had information from an informant who was employed in Dubai, but had first met Sabit in Michigan in late 2013. The informant told the FBI that Sabit had asked him to help obtain a medical license in Dubai because he was considering practicing medicine there or in the United Arab Emirates.
The informant also told Hayes that Sabit went to Afghanistan in December 2013 to set up a hospital in Kabul. When the FBI searched Sabit’s house they found plans dated October 2014, for Aria International Community Hospital in Kabul. They also found emails dated around the same time indicating he had invested $300, 000 to $400, 000 into the hospital with a profit hope of $30 million.
London’s Newcastle Upon Tyne
Hayes testified that Sabit traveled to London in November 2013, and based upon papers seized in the home search, was in the process of applying for a position at a London area hospital: “Newcastle Upon Tyne”, application dated November 11, 2013.
The application stated that Sabit was applying for the position of consultant spinal surgeon; “I am moving to the U.K., as most of my family resides in the U.K.” Hayes testified, and Sabit’s wife’s subsequent testimony confirmed, that none of Sabit’s family resides in the U.K.
Afghan Blue Bloods and Oil
The informant, according to Hayes, traveled to Afghanistan to meet Sabit and his relatives, and government officials—Sabit’s father, who was the former Attorney General of Afghanistan; his uncle, the Speaker of the House, the Minister of Mines; Abdullah Abdullah, an individual then running for President of Afghanistan, who lost the final election, but who is now the Chief Executive Officer of Afghanistan.
The informant had an axe to grind. He claims that he had been “stiffed” out of money on a deal by Sabit.
Sabit, according to Hayes, incorporated the American Mineral and Oil Company in August 2014, to extract natural resources in Afghanistan. Emails from Sabit to his business partner regarding their proposed venture, said that Sabit had secured the rights to survey and extract the 2 billion barrels of oil available for drilling in northern Afghanistan.
A Sabit August 4, 2014 email states:
“Through connections and talks with the Government, including the President and incoming Prime Minister, I am able to secure these and any other mineral rights for our companies, and ideally partner with an American company.”
“The rights to the grounds and all mineral content are secured. I met with the Minister of Mining and Petroleum, as well as the President of the country. My first cousin is the Minister of Finance. My other cousin is the head of the Central Bank. My uncle is the Speaker of the Lower House. My father is a very influential politician. My point is that we have very significant pull in the Government.”
Sabit’s Defense
Sabit’s wife, an RN, testified that she was willing to surrender her and her daughters’ passports and offer the house as security. She also said that Sabit and his father are now estranged.
Dr. Khusraw Sabit is Sabit’s younger brother, who lives in Montreal, Canada. He testified on December 8, 2014 that Afghanistan is not safe for Sabit because their father, who has not been speaking to Sabit, also has made many enemies and was kidnaped and released for ransom in 2011-2012.
The Money Flow
Hayes showed the court a flow chart showing some of Sabit’s money movement of over $2 million from Michigan Brain and Spine into a joint account that he had with his wife at PNC Bank, and then over $1.7 million was transferred out to six accounts: two held by his wife, and two each held in the name of each of his then-two children, 8 and 6 years-old, respectively.
A home search of Sabit’s house revealed a proposed complaint for divorce, seeking sole custody of the children. The home search also showed that Sabit had been living in the basement.
Hayes further testified that the informant said that Sabit had explained that the only reason he was still in the U.S. was because he had young children here, but that if he did leave, the U.S. “would never get him back.”
Sabit’s “Suspect” Character
After listening to the evidence, the detention hearing judge found that Sabit’s character is “suspect given his past conduct of leaving his medical license behind in California and not including that history in his curriculum vita in applying for future medical positions, and his transfer of a significant amount of funds to his wife and children as the investigations unfolded.”
The judge noted that prosecutors offered proof that Sabit “has transferred significant sums of money to two of his young children (allegedly around $1, 000, 000 each), that he claimed to have spent $300, 000 on the Kabul hospital project already, that the government has already frozen $750, 000 in one of his bank accounts, and that it has not been able to identify accounts into which other transfers may have been made.”
The judge ruled that Sabit would remain imprisoned until his trial.
In this article the only thing not correct is the relation of sabit family and Abdullah Abdullah the reality is that sabit family has and had links to former presidents Hamid Karzai and his successor and. Current president Ashraf Ghani so this to be correct for general info.
The orthorhombic reality is that both sabit family and current president Ashraf Ghani belongs to the same village in Afghanistan